Dating da Vinci

—Jenny Gardiner, award-winning author of Sleeping with Ward Cleaver

A gorgeous young Italian, with nowhere to go . . . His name just happens to be Leonardo da Vinci. When he walks into Ramona Elise’s English class, he’s a twenty-five-year-old immigrant, struggling to forge a new life in America—but he’s lonely, has nowhere to live, and barely speaks English . . .

She knows she shouldn’t take him home . . . Picking up the pieces of her life after the death of her beloved husband, linguist and teacher Ramona Elise can’t help but be charmed by her gorgeous new student. And when he calls her “Mona Lisa” she just about loses her heart . . .

W HAT

READERS ARE SAYING ABOUT

M ALENA L OTT:

“Sweet and funny, and very real.” “Funny and refreshing.” “I was hooked from the first page.” “I couldn’t put it down. It was amazing!” Romance/Fiction

$10.99 U.S.

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“Delightfully affirming romance!” —Booklist

dating da Vinci

“Malena Lott’s charming, heartfelt novel about how grieving widow Ramona Elise gets her groove back will have you cheering bravissimo as she experiences her own Renaissance, courtesy of one very hot Leonardo da Vinci.”

dating

daVinci A tale of love, longing, and la dolce vita…

“Funny. Timely. Totally Identifiable.” —Sharon Sala, New York Times Bestselling Author

ISBN-13: 978-1-4022-2650-2 ISBN-10: 1-4022-2650-0

www.sourcebooks.com www.sourcebookscasablanca.com

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Copyright © 2008 by Malena Lott Cover and internal design © 2008 by Sourcebooks, Inc. Cover photo © Veer, Inc. Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems – except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews – without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author. Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc. P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410 (630) 961-3900 Fax: (630) 961-2168 www.sourcebooks.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lott, Malena. Dating da Vinci / by Malena Lott. p. cm. ISBN 978-1-4022-1393-9 1. Widows—Fiction. 2. English teachers—Fiction. 3. Teacher-student relationships—Fiction. 4. Austin (Tex.)—Fiction. I. Title. PS3612.O7775D38 2008 813'.6—dc22 2008011977

Printed and bound in The United States of America. CHG 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

In loving memory of my grandparents who raised me as their own. I miss you every day.

“To enjoy—to love a thing for its own sake and no other.” —Leonardo da Vinci

Chapter 1 I NEVER INTENDED TO take home da Vinci. I don’t mean “a da Vinci” as in a reproduction of the man’s art, best known for his Mona Lisa and Last Supper paintings. I mean to say I took home Leonardo da Vinci, the living, breathing man; only not that man, the genius from the fifteenth century, but a young Italian immigrant who shared his name in modern day Austin, Texas. It is far more accurate to say I took home Italian for dinner. It began innocently enough, with me breaking my rule yet again not to get involved with a student, but I assure you I had never gotten this involved before. My students, all adults ranging in age from their twenties to their sixties, shuffled into the cramped classroom with the wide-eyed wonder of children on the first day of school. I smoothed my blonde hair behind my ear and reviewed the student roster on my clipboard: eight students, five languages. Of the 6,912 known living languages in the world, I had personally encountered more than fifty in my role as an English language instructor to immigrants (including those speaking languages most Americans have never heard of, like Balochi, Dari, Pashto, and Tajik). But it wasn’t an unfamiliar language that caused me to catch my breath. It was a name, jumping off the page like a typo or emblazoned in lights on a marquee. The usual: Miguel, Margarita, Jesús—Spanish; Helena—Swahili; Jayesh—Farsi; Pénélope— French. And lastly, the one that caused the hair on the back of my neck to stand: Leonardo da Vinci—Italian.

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My best friend says that funny tickle is the breeze of fate telling you your life is about to change, but I’d been walking around in a fog so long I barely noticed. I surveyed the students—none remotely resembling an Italian. I’d encountered people with famous names before: a homely gradeschool friend named Elizabeth Taylor, a high-school boyfriend named Bill Clinton, even a wiry bank teller with the macho moniker of John Wayne, but someone named after perhaps the greatest genius of all time? This I had to see. I imagined he would resemble the only sketch I’d ever seen of the artist da Vinci: a self-portrait he’d made in his old age, with a crazy long beard and deep wrinkles. I wondered if Cecelia, my friend in admissions, was playing some kind of joke on me. I watched my students take their places, smiles plastered on their faces as they exchanged pleasant nods to their classmates. A smile was the universal hello, even if it wasn’t genuine, but it soon would be. I wished Americans could see how well the students got along: people from vastly different areas of the world, from all walks of life, from peasants in remote villages to descendants of royalty. My students shared one distinct characteristic that bonded them for life: they were outsiders desperately wanting in. I could typically tell who was whom from their appearances. Their skin colors ranged from the very fair, belonging to a lanky French woman to the rich ebony of an African. Their dress was the second cultural marker, though you could tell how quickly they planned to assimilate if they wore American-style clothing. I passed out the workbooks, noting that da Vinci was still missing, if he existed at all. Getting lost in America was common, something that we concentrated on heavily in the first six weeks—how to get from point A to point B was critical for survival. Each student carried a map with color-coded instructions. My building, the Panchal Cultural Center of Austin, was in orange. I noticed the map was the one item all my students carried in their hands. I waited a few minutes longer

Dating da Vinci 3 for da Vinci to show, but when he didn’t, I started my class as I did each semester, with a welcome in my students’ languages. “Karibu! ¡Hola! Bonjour! Xosh amadid!” I welcomed them with a smile, my hands clasped together then widening in a warm gesture. My students replied back in their native tongues, pleased that we had made a verbal connection. I knew the word welcome in a hundred languages, but was only fluent in four: German, French, Spanish, and English. As a linguist, I knew enough to get around in dozens of foreign countries though I’d never traveled anywhere outside of the United States, except for Mexico where I went with my husband every year for vacation. My heart paused as I thought of him, but soon resumed its normal rhythm. I’m not certain how long it takes a broken heart to mend, but I hadn’t done anything to speed along its recovery. In fact, my life had become so simple and routine that I began to believe survival mode was the only mode, or at least the only mode for me. My only source of adventure lay before me, the seven students who would hang on my every word, unlike my two sons, who grew more belligerent with each passing year, especially with their father gone. After Joel died, I wanted nothing more than to stop communicating altogether, yet finances forced me to work right through my grief. In the almost two years since Joel’s passing, I found myself more comfortable with complete strangers from around the globe than I did with my friends and family. I liked that each semester began with a blank slate—I did not know them, and they did not know me. They were floundering to make it in America, I was floundering to make it through another day. I had never had so much in common with my students. For the first time in my thirty-six years, I didn’t fit in, either. Our class began with a lot of non-verbal communication—pointing to charts and learning the signs they would encounter—stop signs, restroom signs, road signs, traffic signals—all important things that could keep them alive, fed, clothed, and not run over by a bus.

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“Man,” I said pointing to the bathroom sign. “Woman.” “Man,” an Italian voice boomed from behind me. I turned from the chart and looked to the door, where my eighth student stood beaming with a smile and pointing to his chest, mastering his first spoken word of English in my class. Man. My mouth parted in surprise, for the man in front of me, masculine in every sense, was not an old man at all, but a young, gorgeous Italian with chin-length black hair, broad shoulders, and a tall frame. His brown eyes glistened under large black eyebrows, raised in an expression of pride. He wore cargo pants and a fitted long-sleeved T-shirt with a messenger bag slung over his shoulder. His smile, already on the first day, was genuine. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. Even Cecelia couldn’t dream this guy up. “Benvenuto,” I stammered shyly, then pointed to his seat, one off to the side so he wouldn’t distract me. “Ciao, signora,” he said, pointing to the sign of the woman and then to me. “Woman.” I nodded, feeling myself blush. He was only pointing out the obvious; he hadn’t even complimented me, but the way he looked at me made my insides somersault. “Mi chiamo Ramona.” He leaned forward in his desk, which seemed too small for his muscular frame, and pointed to his chest again, this time his large hand over his heart. “Piacere di conoscerla, Ramona. (Pleased to meet you, Ramona.) Mi chiamo Leonardo.” “Da Vinci,” I added. The class laughed. I pointed to Leonardo. “This man is Leonardo da Vinci.” The class recognized the famous name and laughed again. “Si,” Leonardo said, twisting his body to face them, a large grin on his face. “This man is Leonardo da Vinci,” he repeated after me in broken English. After our two-hour lesson, I sent them out with a good-bye in their languages, ending with Arrivederci for da Vinci. Yet instead of

Dating da Vinci 5 leaving like his fellow classmates, he stood over my desk where I sat gathering my papers and making notes. I glanced up, my head even with his hips. I caught my breath again, his presence unsettling. He had to be at least six foot three. I stood, my five-foot-four frame coming up to his chest, my mind searching for its Italian language files, where I was conversational at best. I spoke to him in Italian. Leonardo replied quickly, and I tried to process as many words as I could. Key words enabled me to decipher the meaning from the context. I shall translate. “May I help you, Leonardo?” “Si, Ramona. I need food, rent, sleep, job.” Like I said, key words. He looked at me with those pleading dark chocolate eyes, his Roman nose and chiseled features like the ones the real da Vinci had probably carved a dozen times into statues. This modern da Vinci looked more like a Greek god than any mythological interpretation I’d seen. The only Italians I’d ever met were short men with dark mustaches who operated the Italian restaurants in Austin. But then again, I don’t get out much. I checked my watch. Cecelia would be gone by now, and I had to get to the school to pick up my boys for flag football practice. The social services department, which would help Leonardo with these matters, was closed on Mondays since they worked on the weekends. I couldn’t very well leave him stranded, could I? He smiled at me again, and I noticed the dimple in his right cheek and the deeper dimple in his chin. I couldn’t say no to that most of all. I’d lived in a shell the last two years, so helping someone, especially a cute someone with a killer-watt smile, might be the remedy I needed for my depression. Prozac, among other things, wasn’t cutting it. “Come with me,” I told him, and even as I said it, I wondered what I was doing. Where would I take him, a hotel? Shove the want ads in his large hands and order him a pizza? Panchal’s tagline hung above the

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whiteboard: One human race. Panchal believed everyone belonged, and no one should ever be lost, physically or figuratively. So as a faithful employee, I took Panchal’s torch and made sure da Vinci found his way. I didn’t unlock his door on my black Toyota station wagon until I scooped the fast food bags and candy wrappers and empty drink cups and shoved them into an even larger McDonald’s bag. Junk food had become my therapy; its salty, fatty flavor was far more soothing than a therapist could ever be. Another unfortunate side effect of widowhood wasn’t just the mess that my life had become, but the physical piles of grief everywhere I turned. I had become Linus and Pigpen from Peanuts all rolled into one, only my security blanket was around my heart. The Pigpen side of me, however, was evident in my car, the kitchen sink, the closets, you name it. My mother liked to remind me what a neat freak I was Before, but I told her people change. People die and people change. Two of life’s certainties. I should’ve become more organized After, yet all the effort left me so exhausted I stopped caring so much, save one thing: I dusted religiously for fear of dust mites. Have you seen those things magnified a thousand times? Creepier than a monster in a horror flick. True, some Grievers become better people After like some of the heroic 9/11 widows who started non-profit foundations and pursued big dreams, but I don’t get that. Until today when I’d felt compelled to help da Vinci, the only thing I’d cared about doing was downing double bacon cheeseburger and raising my boys. Neatness became a part of my past like so many other things: happiness, joy, adventure, love. “Grazie,” da Vinci said to me repeatedly as we drove down the interstate. He made himself at home even in my car, fiddling with the mirror and changing the stations on the stereo. “Rock and roll,” he said, nodding his head to the beat of an old Beatles song.

Dating da Vinci 7 “You like rock and roll?” I asked him in Italian. I wanted more than small talk. I wanted to know everything there was to know about this man in my passenger seat on day one. I told myself it was for insurance purposes; I shouldn’t be driving around a complete stranger if he could be dangerous, though I doubted he could be. Even for his size, he looked like a gentle man—maybe it was the kind eyes or the fluidity of his movement. He moved like a dancer in the body of a linebacker. Talking wasn’t a problem for da Vinci. I understood enough to know that I liked him. He spoke lovingly of his homeland, his poor farming community outside of Milan, his four sisters, and he claimed to know a lot about women. I hadn’t doubted that a bit. He was twenty-five, never been married, “because there aren’t pretty girls like you.” If that alone didn’t turn me to putty, his next statement did: he missed his mother. (Okay, his mother’s cooking, but still.) Like many of my students, he was in America at the University of Texas on a student visa. Lucky college girls, I thought. He’d have them lined up for nude portraits in no time, even if he didn’t sketch. Most of my students were poor, scraping together whatever savings they had in their homeland to travel to America to live a better life. I wasn’t surprised that da Vinci only had enough money for one month’s rent and even then it would be at a cockroach-infested motel. I couldn’t see a man this beautiful at an embarrassing excuse for American real estate. “$200 for rent? I know the perfect place,” I told him, my body feeling as light as air. “My studio apartment in the backyard of my house.” Da Vinci seemed very pleased, and because it had been a very long time since I’d pleased a man, I felt pleased myself. Understand that I have never offered my garage studio to a student before, but then I had never met a student like da Vinci, either. I hadn’t touched Joel’s private workspace in two years, leaving

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everything as it had been the day he died. It belonged to Joel, and I felt in some ways that the space would never be anyone’s but his. I had wondered if I would just turn it into a museum, my place where time stood still. But it was, by all accounts, time for the hands to start moving again. But how? During our ride I gathered that da Vinci was not only not an ax murderer, but that he was honest, sincere, hardworking, and something I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but it was something I’d lost and didn’t believe I would ever find again. As I pulled into the elementary school’s circle drive, it came to me. La vita allegra. Joyful living. His eyes danced with excitement and awe and insatiable curiosity. Not just for America. For life. I ached to feel that again. This is why I gave him a ride. This is why I rented my late husband’s studio for scraps. I hoped some of da Vinci’s joy would rub off on me. Although I had meant it more in the metaphysical sense than the physical, that wouldn’t be entirely bad, either. I couldn’t understand half of what da Vinci said, but who cared? It was nice to listen to a voice again. A nice baritone voice so different than the calming tone of my father or the tinny voice of my mother or, let’s be honest, the whiny voices of my sons. Da Vinci was refreshing. Some women wish for Calgon to take them away; I wished for da Vinci to never stop talking. Or looking at me. Looking at me and talking. Especially the part where he’d said I was pretty. “You’ll have no problem making friends,” I said as I pulled my station wagon behind a white Escalade. “I’ll hook you up.” “Hook up?” he repeated. “Hook up Leonardo with Jessica Simpson?” I laughed. “No, not that kind of hook up. I meant, I’ll help you.” So he liked blondes with big boobs and big shiny teeth. I checked my dishwater blonde hair in the rearview mirror, six months overdue for a coloring. The rugged gray strands in the middle stood like little Confederate soldiers, ready to shoot down any approach from a male suitor.

Dating da Vinci 9 Even my teeth, one of my best assets, had coffee stains. What had gotten me out of bed the last two years besides my boys and caffeine? As for the rest, my sister got the boobs in the family and she’d had to pay for them. He probably thought I was old, that people in their thirties were boring has-beens, too settled down with jobs and kids for any adventure. That’s what I’d thought when I was his age. As we wheeled around the school pick-up line at a whopping two miles per hour, I thought about the last time I’d truly had an adventure. Not since Joel had passed, but before then? Six Flags? All that waiting in line and I didn’t even ride the roller coasters. Not even one pseudo-adventure. Settled down was putting it nicely—like most families with young children, our lives were wrapped up in homework and after-school activities and playdates and just getting by. Now even that was hard to do. Getting out of bed each day for the last two years, followed by the tasks most Normals do with ease—showering, fixing breakfast, going to the grocery store—had been difficult. Each menial task felt impossible, yet I did them, each day adding onto the other until the calendar and the change of seasons told me that the second anniversary of my husband’s passing was fast approaching. The life insurance settlement that had kept us going was likewise dwindling to nothing. Who needs a big life insurance package before you hit 40? (Answer: everyone.) It felt like slowly being strangled—the closer I got to the date, the more difficult I found it to breathe. The progress I’d made in becoming a functional human being again was slipping from my grasp. So I supposed da Vinci was a nice diversion, a bodyguard against my grief. I knew it was time to buck up, to prove myself, to regain my place in the world, but the thought scared the hell out of me. My car had reached tenth in line when I began noticing the stares. Moms who rarely waved to me took notice. Da Vinci was like a neon sign blinking Ramona Got Her Groove Back. What must

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they think? I waved back, both embarrassed and a little proud to be seen with someone who looked like him. I had replaced my New York Times crossword puzzle with da Vinci and I wasn’t the tradingup kind of girl. It was a welcome change from the pitying stares I, the poor, young widow, was used to getting—the awkward conversation and the polite invitations to dinner parties I would never attend without Joel by my side. Even worse had been the transition from the hushed conversation about me behind my back to the swelling tide of the world trying to hook me up. As in the Jessica Simpson-type of hook-up. You see, the world is divided into two types of people: Grievers and Normals. Grievers want desperately to be Normal again, but the journey back seems impossible, and Normals don’t understand why Grievers can’t “move on” and “get over it.” After all, death is just a part of life, right? Life goes on. As if. For those who have never grieved, grief has an expiration date, and mine was imminent. They falsely assumed that time healed, and I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I didn’t want to grieve forever, but it was more accurate to expect more than two measly years. Grievers don’t want Normals to know that if Normals lost their spouses they would likely never recover. Not fully, anyway. We can’t be treated like an alcoholic or drug addict, but the wanting is there all the same. Unlike an alcoholic who could give in to temptation, our yearning can never be met. Even crazier is the idea that a lost love can be replaced with a new love, as if all love were equal. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to love again, either. It just seemed as plausible as Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz granting me a wish in her tinny voice. But then if you had told me yesterday that I would have a gorgeous guy in my passenger seat, I would have denied that possibility, too. The school bell rang, sending children pouring out of the school in a mob of multi-colored energy. I scanned the crowd, my eyes

Dating da Vinci 11 settling on a tall woman wearing a red suit—a suit I would not only not fit into but would look ridiculous in because one had to carry herself a certain way to pull off a cardinal-colored suit like that, and this woman, a dark-haired beauty, had what it took. When she spun around, my heart paused again for the second time that day. Monica. My cheeks flushed. I wanted to look away—Just look away, Ramona, I told myself—but she was like an accident at the side of the road and I falsely believed that if I stared long enough, I would understand what had happened. My mom-in-law Judith had told me Monica’s daughter was attending Lone Star Elementary now—a cute kindergartner by the looks of it, but I hadn’t thought I would run into her. It’s a big school, and I don’t recreate with the PTA. I hadn’t seen her since Joel’s funeral when I’d wanted nothing more than to run up to her and shake her and demand answers. Wouldn’t the world have thought I’d gone insane? Yet if they knew what I knew, or what I thought I knew, they wouldn’t blame me a bit. But then I didn’t know much, which is a part of the reason I couldn’t take my eyes off of her until the rustle of my boys demanded my attention. Bradley’s mouth hung upon when he saw Leonardo in the front seat. “Are you a football player?” he asked, his blonde hair falling in front of his blue eyes. “Mom, is he my new private coach?” “Right,” I said, looking at my son in the rear view. “As if we can afford a private coach. Boys, this is Leonardo da Vinci, from Italy.” His little brother William, my dark-haired, dark-eyed version of Joel, viewed me skeptically through his wire-framed glasses. “Is this some kind of living history lesson?” I had been known to drag my boys to cultural events now and then to encourage them to learn about the world outside of our Austin bubble. There, that had to account for adventure, hadn’t it? We’d gone to museums and dance recitals and traveling exhibits. We tried new restaurants—Greek, Japanese, Thai. I was determined not to have my

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boys grow up on Chicken McNuggets and hamburgers alone, though the empty bag stuffed with trash proved even I couldn’t resist the addictive junk. “Can we go to Mickey Dee’s before practice?” Bradley asked. “McDonalds!” da Vinci said, recognizing the global franchise. I’d read that the golden arches were more recognized than Jesus Christ or the President of the United States. A large fries and chocolate shake wouldn’t hurt. I hadn’t had one in what, 24 hours? My car perpetually smelled of French fries, the perfume of greasy Heaven. How could I blame them? I checked my watch again. “Fine. But when you’re done with practice, we’re going to sit down and have a real meal together. Something Italian, perhaps.” William nodded his head enthusiastically. “Does this mean we get to learn to speak Italian, Mom?” Bradley groaned. He had enough problems mastering the English language. I glanced over at da Vinci, again messing with the controls on my stereo, something I had always slapped Joel’s hand for. I had to admit it was nice having someone fiddle with my knobs again. “Sì, è certo,” I winked at William. “Yes, it does.”

Chapter 2 I COULDN’T MOVE THE peanut butter. It wasn’t just any peanut butter, but the kind my husband had eaten nearly every day of his life. His mother had said once he got a taste of it, everything else lost its flavor. His father, not knowing at the time that peanut butter was bad for babies, had put a scoop on his finger and given it to his then eightmonth-old son. Joel had bitten down so hard on his father’s finger with his only tooth that he’d drawn blood. I’d made the mistake of trying to switch things up over the years, like the time we were in a money crunch and I bought a lower-priced brand (I only eat Peter Pan, he’d said to me as if I’d betrayed him), and the time I bought the peanut butter/jelly swirl to save time (How could you? he’d asked, only half-joking), so I learned never to veer from the sacred Peter Pan smooth (never crunchy, honey) peanut butter. Joel’s ritual was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wheat bread for lunch, peanut-butter honey on toast snacks at 3 p.m. while sitting at his architectural drawing board in the studio, and peanut butter vanilla smoothies every Saturday afternoon after his basketball game at the neighborhood park. The jar was nearly empty, the last remnants used to surprise Joel with the smoothie he never got to drink. And yet. The cupboard would be empty without the peanut butter. The pantry, stocked full to feed two growing boys, would no doubt feel bare without it. The cruel twist of fate was that our boys preferred turkey sandwiches, something for which Joel blamed my DNA contributions.

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“I can’t believe it’s been two years,” Anh said as we cleaned out the cupboard, as if I weren’t keenly aware of every day without him. She knew sympathy stares were off-limits. I needed to not feel like a widow on exhibit around someone, and for me that person was Anh Ly, aptly named for “intellectual brightness” and “lion,” my best friend even when I was the last person on earth anyone would want to be friends with. “It’s okay to get rid of the peanut butter.” I felt the familiar squeeze in my chest that told me it would not be okay, that throwing away the peanut butter would be throwing away his memory. It’s the small things that become giant calling cards of grief after someone you love dies. For me, it was peanut butter and a hundred everyday items and the larger ones, too: the hand-me-down sofa and our marital bed, which we’d named Lumpy with good reason. I shook my head vigorously and bit my bottom lip. I took the jar from her hand and curled it into me protectively. The thing is, when I lost Joel, my life lost its flavor, too. I wondered if Monica had made Joel peanut butter smoothies when they had been together. She didn’t seem like the nurturing type, though I have no proof to base this on other than that she hurt my husband; Judith believed the red Monica so bravely wore stood for she-devil, end of story. I wished Judith were more of a gossip, like my mother, because she was mum when it came to Monica. “Swore never to speak that woman’s name again,” she said right after she told me that I could be running into her at the school. Why even mention her at all unless there was something I should know? Whatever had happened between them, time hadn’t healed. Judith, for so much as preaching how God forgiveth, apparently could not forgive Monica for the transgressions against her only begotten son. Seeing Monica that day in the parking lot made me realize I couldn’t move on until I knew the truth about what happened with Monica and Joel before he died. I wanted to tell Anh this, too, because

Dating da Vinci 15 she was famously good at helping me wade through the muck of emotions that pulled me down like quicksand. “Fine, we’ll leave the peanut butter,” Anh said, moving on to the stale chips (trash) and canned food (charity). “But we know it’s about more than peanut butter, Ramona. I want you to start considering having a little fun again.” “It’s only been two years,” I told her, switching the emphasis to make it apparent I thought this was a very short time to be without your soul mate, even though every day had dragged on as if it had been years since I’d last seen him, last touched him. I’d been dreading the cooler days, the green draining from the leaves and falling to the ground like nature’s countdown to the anniversary of his death. “This is not a ‘moving on’ speech. This is one best friend to another throwing out the idea of a little fun. Not a lot of fun, just a little something to stir your spirit,” Anh spoke with authority, and it wasn’t just because she was the CEO of a big accounting firm or because she was voted the Vietnamese Business Woman of the Year. Not a local award or even a national award, mind you, but an international award. This much I knew: I was absolutely no fun, though people tell me I used to be. Fun. If some believe grief has an expiration date, does fun have a start date after losing a soul mate? Or does it just creep up on you when you least expect it? I knew my double-PhD girlfriend was not referring to frivolous fun, like a carnival ride or even a spa retreat. She meant what da Vinci had: la vita allegra. Of course I wanted it, but my joy jar was as empty as the peanut butter. She understood how hard it was to step out in to the world of the living where I believed Normals take everything for granted: their relationships, their health, their marriages. Most people did not find joy in the mundane, and they had their families intact. So how could I? I’d gone to bed hoping for an answer, but I’d woken up in the same empty-bed feeling, the thud of loneliness that rose as ritually as the sun.

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“At least you’ve got your class. Anyone interesting this semester?” she said, throwing a bag of old flour in the dumpster. This would be a great time to tell her that I had done something insanely spur-of-the-moment, acting on impulse, letting fate be my guide—all those things Joel had been known for. He was the spontaneous one who pulled me along for the ride—since then I was as useless as a deserted red Radio Flyer with no one to take me away. “Well, there is this one guy,” I started. Anh held a loaf of moldy bread in her hands. I wish I could’ve blamed that on one of William’s self-made science projects, but it was my own negligence. When Joel was around, the bread had never lasted long enough to grow mold. “A guy-guy? Not just—there-isthis-man-from-Timbuktu guy, but a guy-with-dating-potential guy?” Dating belonged with fun—two words that could not be found in my personal dictionary. Most people had been patient with me, broaching the subject of “getting back out there” casually as if I didn’t feel it like a sledgehammer. But when she said the word “dating,” it didn’t feel like a blow. It sounded like a normal word, like “broccoli” or “sidewalk” or “orange.” Perhaps it was because she said it after she’d asked if there was anyone interesting and my brain had conjured the image of da Vinci and though he was very much foreign, the idea of him in a romantic sense was not foreign to me. But I hadn’t thought of da Vinci as dating material for me—for the hot, under-thirty set, sure—but not for me, the over-thirty, widowy-type. “Hold up. I just said interesting. All of twenty-five, gorgeous, full of life, and happens to be named Leonardo da Vinci.” Anh slapped my arm. “Hoan hô! Hoan hô!,” she cheered, laughing. “Maybe that’s just the spice you need in your life. Someone carefree and void of sticky emotional baggage. Take advantage now before he meets too many people.” “What are you saying?” I said defensively. “That he would only be interested in me until something better comes along?”

Dating da Vinci 17 Anh gave me the once-over, from my hair in the ’80s scrunchie to the worn-down Birkenstocks on my feet. What lay between wasn’t any better: an oversized hooded UT sweatshirt of Joel’s and black sweatpants (faded to gray) with holes in the knees. Anh may not wear makeup tested on animals and use only organic hairspray and eschew leather, but she was stylish and put together. Anh, who was the first person I’d known to ever wear Birks, didn’t even wear them anymore. “Well …” “Just come out and say what you’re thinking. I can see the motor turning.” “Fine,” she said, putting one hand on her slender hip and the other hand on my shoulder. “Let’s just say you and your bread have something in common.” “I’m moldy?” I asked. “No, Ramona. Stale. And the thing is, I know that you know this. You’re just refusing to do anything about it, because that would mean you have to wake up and breathe again and shed that coat of protection you’ve been wearing. You don’t want men to find you attractive anymore because lo and behold, if they do, you’ll have to do something about it. Like kiss them, or have sex, or have a manwoman relationship again. And I’m not saying that you should do that—definitely not until you’re ready and only you know when that is. And the only person women should try to look good for is themselves, and you don’t even want to do that. That’s all I’m saying. With love, from Anh.” I rolled my eyes, something I often did when the other person was right and I, the linguist, couldn’t find the words for a decent refute. “I’ve been making an effort. I started wearing mascara again a month ago. Have you not noticed?” She leaned in and studied my lashes. “Well, I’ll be damned. Good for you. The blush and lip gloss must be jealous, though.” She swept her arm around me and planted a kiss on my forehead.

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Unlike my mother and sister, Anh was fairly lenient about my image, or lack thereof. Most Normals agree Grievers should get some slack in the grooming department. I had taken that platitude for granted. I often wondered if Joel peered down from Heaven, wishing I would have some fun again. He was the type of husband who gave me compliments when I looked my worst, bed-head and morning breath included, so it wasn’t about what was outside. What bothered me most was that my outside so clearly reflected my inside. I placed the peanut butter back on its perch. So many Grievers put on the makeup like a mask and I had refused to do it. I would not dress the part of a Normal until I felt it. For the first six months, I couldn’t believe he was gone, waiting for him to walk through the door at 5:30 p.m. sharp or step out of the shower or to catch a glimpse of him through the front window, watering the flowers. I searched everywhere for him during those six months, as if imagining him still living would make it so. What I missed most of all was his presence, his sense of being, and even after two years, I wasn’t content in an empty house. But after a year, I no longer had to remind myself to breathe, and though the pain still came in like a tide to shore, the tsunami had lost some of its strength. When I would tell Anh that my mother dropped hints like little bombs about nice men she’d met, Anh would shrug it off with a laugh and say, “Tell her to send one Grandma’s way.” Thanks to a one-nightstand in college, her son had produced a daughter, though the union had not produced two willing parents. So Anh ended up with her granddaughter Vi, though she denied she was raising her (which she was). Anh was one of those people who could remove the pricks of pain with a quick jerk and make it all better. I shuddered. “I’ve watched those dating reality shows, and I have two words for you: Hell, no. I’m happy alone and that’s why a

Dating da Vinci 19 makeover is a moot point,” I said, as if it were justification for my slobwear. The happy part was a lie, and everyone knew it. I hadn’t been content in my misery, but it hung around me like thick coat I couldn’t shed. I wasn’t so naïve as to believe the phony smiles I put on for school or the grocery store were fooling anyone. But what man in his right mind wanted to date a grieving woman with two boys, anyway? I was about as attractive as a bug zapper on a summer’s night. Anh smoothed her jet-black hair and reapplied her red lipstick. I wished I could wear red lipstick, but much like the red suit, you have to have the red inside of you to wear it on the outside, and the one time I tried it in my twenties, I looked like a bad imitation of Anna Nicole Smith. “What the hell do I know?” she said. “Never listen to a woman who’s been divorced thrice, yet still throws herself to the sharks as if she doesn’t have a brain in her head.” “I’m not listening to you, but thanks for the permission. Besides, I’m going to be much too busy for dating. I’ve decided to finish my doctorate.” “Look at you! Dusting off the old dissertation. It’s about time. You know the world has a shortage of good word doctors.” “You’re just jealous because when we go out you won’t get to be the only doctor anymore.” “Right. I believe my doctorates in metaphysics and accounting have been a nice repellent to my love life.” “All the more reason I should get mine, stat.” “You’ll be Professor Dr. Griffen before we know it. And I can say I knew you when you were just a geek with the New York Times crossword.” “Some things will never change.” “Like I’ve said,” Anh continued. “When you’re ready, you can get your chakras in alignment again. Especially chakra two.” She pointed to my nether region.

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I knew enough from listening to her chakra talk over the years that chakra two controlled sexuality. “That chakra’s bulb blew out two years ago. How can I possibly have sex with another man and not have it feel like cheating?” “Have you at least been using Mr. Pleasure 2000?” “I threw it away,” I told her. “Right after my mother nearly had a heart attack when she found it in my nightstand.” Her insistence that connecting mind and body and getting my chakras in order would cure my heartbreak and improve my life was as annoying as my mother’s insistence that joining her church would kill two birds with one stone—Jesus would heap blessings on my life and land me a nice Christian man, to boot. When that time comes, she would add. But the sheer fact she had to add that as a footnote told me that she believed I might shrivel into a lonely cat lady after the boys were grown if I didn’t play nice with others. “It’s not about finding a man,” Anh said. “It’s about living again. That’s all we want for you, Ramona. It’s the one thing me, your Jesusfreak mothers and your Energizer Bunny sister all have in common.” My mother and mother-in-law were both evangamoms at Life Church. Joel used to joke we were book-ended with the Lord. Judith was the first to embrace my mother Barbara when she “found the Lord” at the age of 45. It had been Judith’s personal mission to bring all of us into the holy fold thereafter. I was in college, having spent the better part of my childhood bounced from church to church while my mother tried to find one that fit her like a designer suit. She found her fit at Life and a best friend in Judith, which is how Joel and I met. Joel preferred to tell people we met at a chocolate-wrestling tournament where I was a contestant (and blue-ribbon winner). “One lick and I was hooked,” he would tell the shocked listener. Truthfully, our moms set us up. Joel had just gone through a tremendous break-up, his wedding to the she-devil Monica called off, and besides some quality time with the Lord, Judith thought the best

Dating da Vinci 21 remedy was for him to “get back out there.” Sound familiar? As for the remedy for my broken heart After, she only recommended the Lord. “You’ll never find anyone like my Joel,” Judith tells me on a weekly basis. And I wholeheartedly agree with her. The doorbell rang. “Speak of the devil,” I said, knowing it would be my mother on her daily visit. “You mean speak of the Lord,” Anh corrected me with a wink as she headed out the garage. “And find da Vinci. American women will be crawling all over him like horny ants at a hunk picnic.” She was gone before I could tell her that finding da Vinci would not be a problem since he was all of ten yards away, and that he was not just a student, but a tenant. If anyone would confirm that I was off my rocker for moving him in, it was Anh. But I couldn’t date a student, even if he was an adult, as if the idea weren’t preposterous enough if he wasn’t. A little companionship might be nice, though. Dinner had gone well the night before. Da Vinci was a tremendous cook and a quick learner. The boys got a kick out of running around the room pointing at objects and making da Vinci guess what they were in English and giggling when he was wrong. He called a clock a wheel and a fork a spoon and the butter butt. At least he was trying. And if da Vinci could tackle the English language and a foreign world, I could make a go of a new world, too. I’ll admit I liked that they liked him. If they hadn’t, I would’ve handed him his walking papers, gorgeous or not. I’d nearly backed out of letting da Vinci stay in the studio when we entered and I found Joel’s things exactly where I’d left them, where he’d left them, and I wished for a sign from Joel that I wasn’t making a huge mistake, that he was fine with using his space for rent, but the guilt chewed at me like a puppy on a shoe. Unlike some Grievers who claim to “feel” their loved ones with them everywhere they go, I couldn’t feel Joel. All I felt was anger, sadness, loneliness. Besides, I didn’t believe in signs, did I?

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I believed in words. Even if a brisk breeze suddenly whirled through the room knocking his pencil cup off the desk, I’d demand it in writing. A note from the beyond. Still. Choking back tears, I had moved Joel’s coffee cup to the cupboard, left the sketch of the hospital he’d been working on on his drafting table, and asked that da Vinci try to leave everything as is. He seemed to understand, though immigrants often nod their heads when they have no idea what’s being said. “I see you’re bright and shining as usual,” Barbara said upon entering, in a sing-song voice that was really meant as a put-down of my attire and lack of spit and polish. Pre-Joel’s death, I would’ve gotten a “why-can’t-you-be-more-like-your-sister” speech. My dear sister, who, after she found her husband keeping a mistress on the side, lost forty pounds and in two years became the “go-to girl” for fitness in the Lone Star State. After she was nice and rich and famous, she dumped her husband and now dated with incredible ease. I actually preferred her when she was fat. Now my mom took it relatively easy on me, too busy worrying about me to nag. I had to remind myself that she made her daily invasion into my personal life because she cared. She couldn’t imagine a life without my father and she had loved Joel nearly as much I had. As a result, she took my little family on like a fulltime job—keeping up on everything from the latest parenting advice to what’s cool with boys so she could somehow make up for what my kids were missing without their father. Of course, we knew this wouldn’t work, but when Joel died she and my father did turn into Super Grandparents, taking the kids on quarterly vacations and spending more quality time with them than they ever did with my sister and me growing up. With them and Judith and her new banker husband Bob, my kids got plenty of attention, though I still worried every day it wasn’t enough because it wasn’t from their father.

Dating da Vinci 23 Barbara handed me a stack of magazines—she hated to be wasteful and throw them away—and I cringed. I don’t believe in signs. Anh does. My evangelical mothers do, of course. God is trying to tell you something, they would say to me. If this was true, what did it mean that Monica Blevins was on the cover of Austin Monthly? I preferred to believe it was just a coincidence; as for the cover, well, she was like Anh, a mover and a shaker. Movers and shakers often get photographed for covers of magazine. It had nothing at all to do with my desire to confront her about Joel. I placed Better Homes and Gardens on top of her picture and sat the stack next to the chair on top of the stack from last week. My mother really should know better. The stack would eventually cause its own avalanche and my boys would step on them, using them as roller skates on the carpet, and eventually my mother would pick them up and throw them in the trash without my ever having read them, which is what she should’ve done in the first place. Barbara clicked on my sister’s show, Get Up and Move It, Texas!, her statewide fitness show that I TiVoed, vowing to work out to it later in the day (unlike her, I wasn’t a morning person), but I never got around to it, morning, noon or night. My mother, who watched the show faithfully every morning while sipping her coffee, liked to come over and watch my sister again while she helped me do laundry. (While many single moms take care of these duties on a daily basis without any help and Joel didn’t even know how the dryer knobs worked, she insisted.) I’d always hated laundry and wished she would’ve volunteered for the chore years ago, but after Joel died, I missed doing his laundry. Normals believe it is a menial task—wear clothes, dirty clothes, wash clothes—an endless cycle. But a Griever sees laundry as a spoke in the cycle of life. No laundry, no life. My mother wore slacks and a button-down blouse more appropriate for church or a business office, though she’d never worked a day in her life outside of her home. She considered the church her

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other full-time job, and belonging to a congregation of 10,000 people meant she was never bored. Some might say my mother was an enabler, keeping me from cleaning up my own messes, but others might just say she was a mother who loved her daughter and could see that her daughter, for whatever reason, still needed some help. Even with my mother annoying me no end, I weighed the pros and cons and decided that I could put up with whatever she had to dish out—so long as she also did the dishes. Besides bringing good food and helping hands into the house, she brought commotion with her. It was the stillness of the world without Joel that rattled me the most. I missed the quiet noise of having a partner in my life—the sound of his shuffling down the hall, his heavy breathing in his sleep, his throaty laughter during dinner, his spirited cries during a football game on TV. At first I’d gone to crowded places, believing that any noise could make up for it—the mall, fairs, sporting events. But all I did was prick my ears for the sound in the crowd I longed to hear most, and it never came. “I met the nicest fellow last night,” Mom said as she separated our brights and whites. I started to roll my eyes before reminding myself that I was docking my boys’ allowances each time I caught them rolling theirs. It was rude and where there were rolling eyes, there were words not being said. So far I’d be dinged $2 today, but who would hold me accountable? “Not now, Mom.” Barbara shut the washer door with a thud and shook her head. “Is this what it’s come to, Ramona? I can’t even have a conversation with you if it involves a person of the opposite sex? I feel like if I even say the word ‘man,’ you’ll snap at me.” I immediately thought of da Vinci pointing to his chest in the doorway of the classroom bellowing the word, man. I definitely preferred the way he said it.

Dating da Vinci 25 My mother flinched (she’d always been sensitive) and I knew that deep down she only wanted the best for me. I apologized and hugged her and went to pour her black coffee, as strong as her religious convictions. “Tell me about the person of the opposite sex if you really think I should know.” We sat on the back patio and drank our coffee. The cool morning required a jacket, and I gazed at the empty flowerbeds thinking how pretty maroon and gold mums would look in them, and orange pansies. They were Joel’s favorite, though he made me promise I would never tell anyone a feminine-sounding flower like pansy was his favorite. If I planted flowers, that would mean autumn was here and I wouldn’t do anything to speed along its coming. I hadn’t mentioned da Vinci yet, though I could see him stirring through the window of the studio across from us, but as usual, my mother didn’t let me get a word in edgewise. “He’s a doctor,” she went on. “An anesthesiologist at Mercy. Has a daughter from his first marriage, been divorced for three years and he’s on the building committee with your father at church. Noble just thinks the world of him. They’re playing golf together this Saturday.” I couldn’t take my eyes off of the window, where every few seconds I could see his dark hair pop into view. After awhile I figured out he was doing sit-ups, something I hadn’t done since scrunchies were in style. Thinking about his abs, though I’d never seen them, turned me into butter. “Are you listening to me, Ramona Elise?” Her gaze followed mine, but da Vinci was nowhere in the frame. “Whatever are you looking at?” “Of course I’m listening. Dad’s golfing with a doctor from Mercy this weekend. Just what I need. Someone that puts people to sleep for a living. Is he handsome?” “Quite handsome, though I only have eyes for your father,” she said. My mother pointed out handsome men everywhere we went,

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yet she always followed it with that statement as if it made her less guilty for noticing. “And what’s wrong with an anesthesiologist? He keeps people alive while they’re unconscious. It wouldn’t hurt to find a new friend. That’s all. A friend. Judith and I have discussed it.” “So now you and my mother-in-law are discussing my having male friends? Did the Lord send you a sign?” Barbara batted her eyelashes. Unlike me, my mother claimed to get signs from the Lord on a near-daily basis. “It just came up. There’s a singles mixer we thought you might be interested in. Just for making friends, that’s all. Doesn’t have to be romantic.” “I have friends,” I told her, glancing back up at the garage studio window. In truth, I had Anh and my international friends of my cul-de-sac, mostly former students, and a couple of friends at work. Parenting and Joel had taken up all of my time for the last ten years. More friends would’ve seemed a luxury I couldn’t afford. “Besides, Judith has told me repeatedly how uncomfortable it would make her if I began dating.” “Of course it would. She’s not ready for that, but then neither are you, so what does it matter? But a friend wouldn’t hurt, darling. Even Judith thinks so.” “Yeah. You said that already.” Barbara sipped her coffee, her bright eyes taking in the outdoors. My mother had a peppy personality (inherited by my sis, not me), but then she wasn’t yet a Griever. Even my grandparents were both still living. Judith on the other hand, was a Griever. Her world had been wrapped up into Joel, her only child, and she had transferred that attention to her grandsons, which was both a blessing and a curse. “Why don’t we do something fun today, Ramona? What do you say? We could meet your sister for lunch and buy you a new outfit. You haven’t let me shop for you in ages.” I recalled the moose sweater she’d given me for Christmas last year and shuddered. I’d cried not because I hated it, but because I

Dating da Vinci 27 couldn’t laugh about it later with Joel. I peered at the window again and then down at my slob wear. Well, a new outfit couldn’t hurt. Fun had been taken from its dusty box in the basement, brushed off and ready to open. “Something nice for a singles mixer, maybe?” I said, half-kidding. “Why do I think this won’t end well? But what the hell,” I said and her right arm shot into the air as if Bob Barker had told her to “come on down, you’re the next contestant on The Price Is Right.” The one thing my mother loved nearly as much as her church and volunteering was marathon shopping. I had to admit she was devilishly good at it. “Really?” she’d said as if I were pulling her leg. “I’ll call Rachel and Judith and we’ll make a day of it. You go get washed up and changed then.” While my mother went back into the house to call Rachel, I watched the Panchal taxi cab pull into my side driveway and honk for da Vinci to take him to the center for his job placement interview. A moment later, he emerged wearing corduroy jeans and a T-shirt, his hair still wet from a shower. I imagined how cramped he would’ve been in the tiny shower stall, and thinking of him naked, stooped under the low shower head, made me feel weak. Leonardo descended the rickety steps and looked at me, the sun shining on his flawless face, and waved to me. “Buon giorno.” “Good morning,” I said back, and meant it. Like the little devil on my left shoulder, my mother exhaled behind me, “My Lord, Ramona. Who in Heaven is that?”

Chapter 3 RACHEL TALKED ABOUT HER favorite topic while we dined on tuna salad sandwiches (because I was in skinny company) in the food court at lunch: herself. The world according to Rachel contained only three things: her career, her looks, and her love life. While Anh referred to her as the Energizer Bunny, I couldn’t help but think she did the opposite of a battery and actually drained my energy instead of boosting it. Her enthusiasm might be contagious to “get off your couch and shake your groove thing, Austin,” but it didn’t work on me. She looked fabulous as usual with her tiny, size-2 figure and perky breasts and gleaming blonde hair recently lowlighted. She was two years younger than me, though I’d heard her lie to people and say she was twenty-nine on more than one occasion. She had one daughter, Zoe, who was bowed up and ready for a pageant even on non-pageant days. Her fourth favorite topic, if I were keeping track, would be Zoe and her misadventures in the pageant world. For, unlike her mother, Zoe had no charm, charisma, or personality. She was low-key like me. And she was all of five, for goodness’s sake, and her camera-hogging mother couldn’t fathom that nature had given her a bookish, inquisitive, athletic girl who questioned everything on the planet instead of a mini-Rachel starlet in the making. I adored her and on a weekly basis thought the best thing for me to do would be to raise her as my own so she’d have a chance. Zoe joined us for lunch because she only attended a half-day kindergarten, though her afternoons were spent in an endless

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juggling act of dance, gymnastics, and cheerleading. The only time my otherwise chipper sister had bitten my head off was when I’d suggested, upon seeing a sad dance recital where my niece was two steps behind the other little girls, that perhaps Zoe had inherited my awkward rhythm. We’d shopped for three hours already and while my mom and sister’s bags piled high next to their seats, the only thing I’d gotten is the terrible confirmation that my mid-section needed lipo and some of da Vinci’s morning sit-ups. Being a junk food addict did have its side effects, namely thunder thighs and a jiggly badonkadonk. Having someone like da Vinci as a personal trainer just might make me stick to a workout routine. That doughy area that sits atop the pants’ waistline was called a muffin top, my sister informed me after I tried on a pair of pants that would’ve fit me two years earlier. No wonder I hadn’t shopped for myself since Joel died. Jogging suits (not used to jog) were my primary wardrobe. My stomach growled as soon as I’d finished my sandwich, proof that my appetite was spoiled and indulgent. But no more. Today I was going to start taking back control, starting with what went into my mouth. To prove I was serious, I would pass by the fast-food chains on my way home without even glancing at their evil bright signs, let alone turn into the drive-thru where sadly, all the workers knew me by name. Thanks to the excruciating task of trying to squeeze into sizes I once wore with ease, I realized the huge void in my life could not be filled with powdered donuts and cheeseburgers. If only I’d realized that twenty pounds ago. “Mom tells me you have a hot Italian living in your studio,” Rachel said as she pushed away the cookie I tried to get her to eat. “What’s this?” Judith asked, her red lip pursing in surprise. Judith looked like she’d just had a Mary Kay makeover every time you saw her. Coiffed hair, heavily lined lids, powdered-toperfection face.

Dating da Vinci 31 “Oh, he’s a student,” I said nonchalantly. “He only had $200 for rent so I thought he could stay in the studio for a bit until he starts earning more money.” “That’s our bleeding-heart Ramona,” my mother said. Judith crossed her manicured hand over her heart, as if she were having chest pain. “In Joel’s studio?” I cleared my throat. “Well, yes. But it hasn’t been used.” Judith’s brows went up. “I suppose I could come help you pack Joel’s things out there.” She had been in the camp that believed you did not have to get rid of the deceased’s belongings. In fact, Joel’s bedroom in her house was the same as it had been in high school, complete with his trophies and party pics (though Joel had scratched out Monica’s face with a black marker after the wedding had been called off ) and even the clothes in his closet. Judith was certain, even after we got married, that he might long for a T-shirt or red checked Polo or any number of the clothes she had so lovingly purchased for him over the years. “Oh, that’s not necessary, Mom G,” I said, patting her arm. “It’s just a few things, and I’m going to keep them.” “Of course you are. But if you decide you don’t want them any longer, please give them to me. I couldn’t stand his things being thrown out.” I took a sip of diet Coke, while my sister kicked me under the table. She thought Judith’s preoccupation with Joel, even in his death, was a bit much. But then she wasn’t a Griever, so she would never understand. “How about giving your sister the hook-up?” Rachel said, turning the conversation back to herself. I considered my sister’s blonde hair, the C-cup breasts “Santa” gave her for Christmas three years earlier and her sparkling white teeth. She wasn’t Jessica Simpson, but she was a close clone. He would like her. “He doesn’t speak English,” I told her.

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She flipped her long hair. “Not seeing the problem, Sis. Haven’t you heard of the universal language?” I nearly choked on my diet Coke. “Love? You’re not falling in love with da Vinci.” Over my dead body. “Thanks, brainiac. My plans don’t include love or verbal communication. Body language of another sort.” She giggled and my mother shook her head as if to disapprove, but smiled anyway. Judith forced a smile, though I gathered she wasn’t one of my sister’s biggest fans, something Mom Griffen and I shared besides our love for Joel and the boys. I thought about telling them about my dissertation on the language of love, the one that I’d benched After because it was the last language I wanted to speak and doubted I would ever speak again. If everyone in the world can speak the language of love but me, who am I to write about it? I grabbed the cookie she wouldn’t eat and stuffed it in my mouth. Rachel leaned in and shook her French-manicured finger at me. “Look who’s proclaimed herself the bodyguard to the hot immigrants! Well, Mom’s setting me up with a handsome doctor, anyway. I hope he lives in a gated community with a pool in his back yard.” Before I could remark on how shallow my sister was I glared at Barbara. “Mother! You’re giving her the doctor you were giving me?” Barbara’s face softened. “Just because your sister might go out on a date with Dr. Cortland Andrews doesn’t mean you can’t also be friends with him.” Judith nodded in agreement. “So your mother told you about our idea for the Life singles group, then?” My voice shrilled. “I have male friends. Michael, for one.” I shot a glare at my sis. “My ex?” Rachel shrieked. “I wouldn’t say that out loud.” “He’s not a good influence,” Barbara said. “He broke one of the Ten Commandments,” Judith said, then added in case any of us had forgotten, as if Rachel didn’t remind us and her public all the time, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

Dating da Vinci 33 I kept my tongue to myself to keep from lashing out that perhaps even her own son had broken a commandment, the very same one, and that now I was determined to find out if it was true. Even if I did find out he had cheated with his ex-fiancée, I knew I couldn’t burst Judith’s bubble about her only son. “Well, Michael’s not my only male friend. I have da Vinci now.” My mother giggled. “Oh, Judith. You should see him. He’s quite a looker.” “Whatever would you have in common with him?” Judith asked. I began to formulate a list, but then thought how ludicrous it would be to have to prove to any of them the who and why of my friendships. Da Vinci and I could be friends. And so could this Cortland fellow. Just because I was a widow did not make me unfriendly, though Anh would probably take me to task on that one. She had said the Seven Dwarfs I most resembled were Sleepy, Bashful, and Grumpy. I told her to try raising two boys on her own and grieving a soul mate and see if she came up any different. Rachel flicked her golden hair, giving me the puppy-dog stare she often did her viewers when she looked into the camera and told them she knows how hard it is to get off that couch. “It’s okay, sugar. You’ll always have us,” she said and it dawned on me that this is what my new Normal looked like. If I continued down this path, having my mother visit on a daily basis would turn into a permanent situation. These three musketeers would try to steer my life from here on out. My new Normal did not seem like a big step up from my Griever life. No way. This couldn’t happen to me. If it was time to transition to a Normal, it had to be on my terms, not taking the scraps of others’ sympathy to piece together a life without Joel. I thought about the binder back home in Joel’s office—the one where I’d stuffed everyone’s articles, magazine ads and letters with ideas on how to deal with my grief. So far the only recommendation

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I’d taken was attending a Parents without Partners class, which focused more on parenting needs than personal ones. Because, really, I wasn’t worried about me. It was my boys, fatherless boys who would grow up into fatherless fathers, who most concerned me. I’d been most concerned about. And luckily they were still young enough that they opened up to me and shared their feelings. It was I who hadn’t fared so well in the sharing department. It was I who hadn’t done a single thing to try to recapture la vita allegra. Finding joy would not happen in one lightning strike. Just as my students couldn’t swallow big words all at once, I would have to start slow—finding the root and adding prefixes and suffixes until before long I had one word following another, making sense of my life again, creating a new story that may not be the same as my old one, but joyful nonetheless. I had to believe it could happen. I checked my watch, wishing I could return to spend some time with da Vinci before we had to pick up the boys. Our next class wasn’t until the following morning. Muffin top or not, I couldn’t give up on at least one slimming outfit first. I would wake up the next day and put on something new, something that I felt confident in, something that a butterfly might wear on her debut into the world. Who knew one needed courage just to shop for a new look, let alone a new life? I threw down the challenge to my fashion-loving familials and we dove into the shopping sea. FFF

“Are we on for Bunko tonight?” Zoya asked as we both pulled groceries out of the trunks of our cars, hers a cherry-red convertible. Zoya was my next-door neighbor in the cul-de-sac, a former student from five years earlier, a pricey mail-order bride from Russia, though Donald had asked her not to tell anyone. (As if we weren’t bright enough to know he wouldn’t vacation in Russia and during one week,

Dating da Vinci 35 boy meets girl, boy marries girl, and girl leaves for big adventure in the U.S. with a virtual stranger.) With a Russian mother and a German father, she usually spoke German around me since I’m fluent, and Donald didn’t seem to mind that he didn’t know what his wife was saying half the time. But then couldn’t the same be said of English-speaking spouses? Her family and six brothers and sisters had gotten a sizable sum for her marital commitment (Bunko nights are quite revealing) and the then-nineteen-year-old had been desperate to start a new life in the United States, even if it meant marrying a slightly overweight CPA twice her age. It might be easy to rush to judgment on a man that would resort to such drastic measures to find a mate, but I understood his desperation. If I hadn’t met Joel, I often wondered if I’d still be searching for my soul mate. Donald had tried for twenty years the traditional way with no luck. At least I’d had one true love, more than most people ever get. I slung my arm through three plastic bags and watched Zoya maneuver the heavy groceries in her platform heels and skin-tight ankle pants. Her dark hair swung down to her hips, the sides pushed up in clips. She was exotic, though not quite beautiful, and Donald kept her happy with all the American luxuries: a red sports car, designer clothes and weekly spa appointments. “Bunko. I don’t think so,” I told her. “I have company.” Sort of company. Zoya smacked her gum and shut the trunk with one overly braceleted arm. “You got the man in the backyard. Very handsome man.” I nodded, fighting the temptation to correct her broken English. My vow was once they left my class not to put on my teacher hat again. “He’s a student from Italy. Needed a place to stay.” Zoya eyed me suspiciously, then added, “We have you all over for dinner tonight. You, the Italian, and your boys.”

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“Thanks for the offer, Zoya, but we’re working around the kids’ schedules so things are crazy. But we’ll do it another time. Are things okay between you and Donald?” She shrugged, her long silver earrings brushing her collarbone. “Husband trying to impregnate me.” Zoya, much like Anh, never held back. I don’t think it was lost in translation, either. “Oh. Do you not want a child yet?” Zoya raised her Prada sunglasses to stare at me as if I should know better. “If I get with child, this body goes kaput. Same goes my mother and three sisters. One day thin and beautiful, after baby like a big Russian housewife.” I suppressed a laugh. I could tell from Zoya’s attire that being attractive was very important to her. Unlike me, she did work out to Get Up and Move It, Texas! every morning. “Well, I’m sure Donald just wants a child before he gets too old,” I said. “And lots of people get their bodies back after they have children.” Just not me. As if a light bulb went off, Zoya pulled out a National Enquirer from her bag. “Like article in newspaper. Angelina Jolie gets body back after baby. Zoya too get body back?” “Yes,” I nodded, the grocery bags’ handles digging red marks into my forearm. “Zoya gets her body back.” Pleased with this, Zoya waved her long manicured nails through the air and said over her shoulder, “Donald will get baby then. But still want to meet Italian.” As I entered the house I instinctively sang, “I’m home,” as I’d done for ten years upon returning from the grocery store. Because the boys asked for everything in the store, they stayed home with Joel, yet in the last two years, it was hard to break the habit. My announcement echoed through the laundry room, my heart sinking when I didn’t hear the familiar “It’s about time” from my husband. To my surprise, another voice echoed back. “I’m home,” da Vinci said. As if my heart were on an escalator, it rose again from the bottom floor. Besides my class, da Vinci

Dating da Vinci 37 was learning by repeating everything I said and trying to discern its meaning. He rushed to greet me, wearing soccer shorts and a T-shirt. He’d joined the Panchal soccer league immediately, and I’d told the boys we’d go watch his first game. His muscular thighs and calves drew my eyes down the length of his body, but I quickly rebounded to his large smile. He took the bags from my arms and together we put them away, going item by item for da Vinci to learn their names. A hundred items, the only embarrassing one being tampons. “Tampon for woman,” he said, not embarrassed in the least. Well, he did have a family full of females in Italy. The TV was paused on my own sister in a downward lunge, her boobs front and center. The escalator dropped a few stories again. Bradley had taught da Vinci how to use the TiVo (and TV, as he didn’t have it in his village), and obviously da Vinci found programming that he liked. We spoke in Italian. “Did you work out to my sister?” “Half of the program.” “Do you like her?” “I’m sure she’s very nice.” “But do you think she’s pretty?” Da Vinci nodded. “She smiles too much. Her voice is irritating.” We laughed. Da Vinci: handsome and smart. Together we set aside the ingredients for the lasagna da Vinci would make us for dinner—his mother’s recipe, he had said, starting to tear up at the mention of her name. A handsome Italian cooking me dinner every night? This I could get used to. When Cecelia had found out da Vinci was living in the studio, she had passed along da Vinci’s skills sheet to assess job opportunities at the temp agency also owned by Panchal. “Have you ever seen anything like it?” Cecelia had asked as we reviewed the sheet. More than a hundred items on the sheet and da Vinci had checked more than half of them.

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“He says he’s very good with his hands,” I had told her. Cecelia, who looked like a church lady but gossiped like a desperate housewife, had chewed on the end of her glasses and shook her chest. “Oh, I bet he is. Do share with me if you find out, will you?” Zoe and her father Michael met us at the soccer field because Zoe was staying with him the rest of the week while Rachel flew to San Diego to give a motivational speech to women who had lost their husbands in the Iraq War. If she became as iconic as Richard Simmons, I was going to throw up. At least I had a sympathetic ear in Michael, whose own reputation had been sacrificed for the sake of his ex-wife’s career. Rachel’s motivational speeches began with the “woe-is-me, my husband cheated, I thought my life was over, I took control, lost forty pounds, and wham-bam, look at me now, I’ve got my own TV show and get to meet fabulous people like you” spiel. If I were in the audience (which I swear I won’t be), I would raise my hand and ask my sister how she can ever compare a cheating husband to a dead husband, especially a good dead husband, but she would find a way. She always does. The audience would eat her up like an irresistible confection. Pretty, sweet girls have few enemies. At least Michael, da Vinci and I all agreed she smiles too much. It was a start. Michael, who frequently got dirty looks when he went in public and had bigger hurdles than most guys back in the dating pool, wore his business suit sans jacket, and Zoe, sans mega hair bow, sat between her nephews. She wanted to play soccer, but her mother said she didn’t have time with dance/cheer/gymnastics/pageants. So tonight she was skipping one of them because Michael had to exert power in the relationship whenever he could. Besides, Zoe agreed she didn’t feel well (she learned quickly) so Rachel wouldn’t tear into Michael. My feeling sorry for Michael (and his mutual sorrow about my loss) had made us much better friends than we ever were when he and Rachel were married. It was probably because he had been Rachel’s whipping boy while they’d been married, and I couldn’t

Dating da Vinci 39 stand how he never stood up for himself. I was in the small minority who believed Rachel had pushed him into the arms of another woman, but I had only told Joel this and he quickly agreed. He had liked Michael, too, and a friend of Joel’s would always be a friend of mine. The other thing about grief is that you divide the universe into two parts: those who knew your dearly departed and those who don’t. I’m not sure which is easier, but whenever I meet someone who tells me they knew Joel (a classmate, a client, an associate), I latch on to them and make them tell me anything I may not have known about my husband. You think you know everything about your mate until they die. Some days I feel like I’ll never know. Asking the one person I really wanted to talk to, the one person who could tell me the most about my husband, was too painful. If I were honest with myself, I would admit that I could not move on without knowing the truth about Joel and Monica, which is why I couldn’t put it off much longer. I only know what he was willing to give, which was precisely six weeks, two days, and one hour before his death: We’re history. A long, complicated history I don’t care to recount if that’s okay with you. It wasn’t okay with me, which is why I had bugged him to death about it, right up until his death. In fact, our final argument had been about Monica, the night before he’d died. He was exhausted from a long day at the office; having passed on his work for her law firm to another partner, he was knee-deep in a new hospital project. He’d just gotten back from running and had clutched at his chest, telling me he felt winded, but I hadn’t worried. He was athletic and young, always pushing himself to the limit. I wasn’t a runner, wasn’t even a fast walker, so I knew nothing of a runner’s high or why people would push their bodies to the pain limit. I let him catch his breath, but only for a moment, before I’d gingerly asked him if he would tell me honestly and completely if he was over her.

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He had looked at me like a stranger might, someone you think you recognize from across the street, only to find out that no, you don’t know them at all. I cringed inside that I’d get that look—as he continued to pant and left me for a shower without an answer. I took this as a no. No, I’m not over Monica Blevins. After I saw her at the funeral, I realized she was the type of woman that no man could ever truly get over. She was someone babies to old men wanted to get to know and once you did, you came back for more. I was no exception. My obsession with Monica Blevins had not died along with Joel but had been buried underneath the weight of grief. Now that I was digging myself out of it, there she was again, waiting, taunting. I wished I’d been more trusting, had more faith in our marriage, but Joel’s act of passing on the account did not pacify me. A cloud of suspicion hung over our marriage those last weeks and it had not dissipated even in his death. Did I really think he’d pack his bags and go back to her? Truthfully that’s what I’d feared ever since our second date when he’d told me that he couldn’t get in a relationship because I would just be a rebound and I deserved better than that. My heart’s just mush, he’d told me, and though I teased Joel time and again for his comment after we were committed and then long married, I wondered if a piece of it was true. If after eight years of marriage I was still a rebound girl: the one you go to after the one you love has just destroyed you. “Alrighty then. That’s him?” Michael asked as we sat on the bleachers, looking out at da Vinci warming up with his new teammates. I acted as though I didn’t catch the surprise in his voice. “He starts at UT next week. Coming in late because he had some problems with his visa.” Michael, attractive even with a receding hairline, loosened his tie. “At least you’re giving him a break. You always were the nice one.” I noted the hint of bitterness, but let it slide when Anh, wearing a business suit and Vi on her hip like an adorable accessory, awkwardly

Dating da Vinci 41 climbed the bleachers in her heels. I grabbed Vi and planted a kiss on her round cheek. Anh sat next to Michael and flipped her hair. She denied that she flirted with him and he with her, but only someone as out of touch with romance as me could identify it in others. Anh firmly believed that opposites only attract out of boredom and she was far from bored. She hated that Michael drove a gas-guzzling SUV and Michael hated that Anh wouldn’t eat meat. (Hey, this is Texas! Cattle country!) Don’t even get them started on the war and political agendas—he the flag-waving Republican, and she the die-hard Dem. Nonetheless, I thought they would be perfect together. But what did I know? “I retract my last statement,” Anh said as she stared at da Vinci with her mouth agape. “You don’t have a chance in hell with a specimen like that. Even if he is a living statue in your backyard.” Michael squinted his eyes. “You like da Vinci?” “Not in that way.” “Hell, yes, in that way,” Anh retorted. “Any woman with a pair of … ovaries would like him in that way.” Michael shook his head and crossed his arms, knowing when to keep his mouth shut. Anh handed Vi some Cheerios from her oversized black leather purse (she wouldn’t dare carry a diaper bag). “So did you call the yogi yet?” “A yogi,” Michael said, shaking his head again. “Don’t go getting her involved in your Eastern mumbo-jumbo.” Anh ignored him. “Tell the Repub a little yoga might remove that massive stick up his ass.” “Stop it, you two. You’re worse than my boys.” Anh claimed that I was like a pipe with massive clogged drains keeping “flow” from happening. It all sounded drippy to me, but I’d promised myself I would try new things and that included the possibility that my body did need some spiritual plumbing.

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One thing I knew for certain: the Cheetos/Oreos/sad movies method I had prescribed for myself had done zilch for my grief and even less for my body image. I had always considered myself an open person until my loss sealed the door shut. With the help of—what?— I could open it again. I would plow through the ideas in the grief binder like Columbus searching for his New World. Where I would find me again, only God, or Buddha, knew. Then there was da Vinci, whose coming was both timely and oddly welcome. We began our journeys at the same juncture, side by side as we ventured into the unknown; he trying to start a new life in America, me trying to find the meaning of it again. Anh said we were entering our Renaissance period (Renaissance: a revival of or renewed interest in something). The original da Vinci had been a key figure in the sixteenth-century Renaissance, and I had no idea if my da Vinci would play a key role in mine. With one hard kick, da Vinci scored a goal, and raising his arms in the air, searched me out in the bleachers. I cheered for him and felt the deadbolt unlock, the sound echoing through my soul.

Chapter 4 soul \sol\ n 1 : the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being regarded as immortal 2 : a person’s moral or emotional nature or sense of identity (Origin: Old English) I GAWKED AT DA VINCI’S naked chest a full three minutes before turning the engine off to retrieve him and regretfully see him slide his T-shirt back on his sweaty, dirt-streaked frame. No shock; I wasn’t the only spellbound, jaw-slacked female enjoying the view. When I took my eyes off of him for a split second, I saw a woman walking her dog (more like standing still) staring at him, and another just pull over at the side of the road to take a long peek. I thought, Is this what my life has come to? Getting my thrills watching a well-built guy planting pansies? Am I so desperate that just watching McDreamy on Grey’s Anatomy isn’t cutting it for me anymore? And wasn’t I going to visit my neighbor Gabriella’s deacon this afternoon to talk about the very essence of our being: the soul? To prep for it, I should be waxing existential, not staring at eye candy all afternoon. It wasn’t my fault da Vinci got overheated and took off his shirt. It’s not like I asked him to. (Would I dare?) I was just an innocent bystander, giving him a ride back home before I hoofed it to the deacon. So if a girl just happens upon a thing of beauty, it would be rude not to appreciate the artistry of a well-sculpted creation. And it somehow calmed my nerves about meeting with a theologian. Because as openminded as I am about life, culture, differences, I haven’t firmly grasped

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any one belief about Heaven, God or that mystery that is the soul. I only knew that I hoped we had one and that I would be reunited with Joel someday and that I would recognize him. Hopefully he wouldn’t look thirty-eight and me, eighty-eight, because well, that would just be a cruel joke, now, wouldn’t it? Earlier that morning as Gabriella and I walked through the trails in our neighborhood, she shared with me her view of Heaven, something we hadn’t discussed since Joel passed. My friends had trod softly where it came to Joel, and though we talked about him, the conversation consisted of funny stories from his life, not musings about his death. “It’s full of flowers and men like da Vinci walking around with angel wings,” she said as her tiny frame kept up with my taller one. Only hours later, as I watched da Vinci among the flowers, I started to believe she could be right. Heaven would be beautiful, right? But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t picture Joel anywhere other than in my house. Joel was a city boy. If Heaven was more of a countryscape than a cityscape, how could he not feel out of place there? Then again, Heaven surely didn’t have mosquitoes, Joel’s biggest problem with the outdoors. He also didn’t like to get dirt under his nails, so he’d worn gardening gloves. I wondered if they had gardening gloves in Heaven. Would the deacon know the answer to that? Were my questions too basic? I wished I weren’t such a spiritual simpleton. Da Vinci, on the other hand, had the dirtiest nails I’d ever seen and as soon as I saw them, I felt the compulsion to wash them for him, slowly, meticulously, using a file to clean every nail, then finish them off with a vanilla-scented lotion. Instead I said, “Don’t touch anything,” as he got into the car. “You like?” da Vinci said, pointing to the exquisite landscaping in front of the office complex. I said yes without so much as looking at his handiwork. “I like very much,” I told him.

Dating da Vinci 45 As we passed by the Hallmark Stables on the way back to my house, da Vinci’s eyes lit up upon seeing the horses grazing in the field. “Da Vinci rides horses,” he said longingly. I glanced at the dozen or so animals in the pasture. I’d passed them nearly every day going home, but I’d never really noticed them before. Like Joel, I’d been raised a city girl in Dallas before moving to Austin to go to college, met Joel and, well, stayed and had babies and did the New York Times crossword puzzle every day. Was there more to a happy life than that? I’d never ridden a horse in my life, save for pony rides at birthday parties. The expansion of Austin from a small city to sprawling suburbia meant occasionally the city and the country collided. “You ride horses? Well, we could arrange that.” As a stranger in a strange land, da Vinci was coping well, but I could sense he missed more than just his mama back home. If riding a horse would make him happy, then it was the least I could do. Da Vinci ran his dirty fingers through his longish hair and instead of cringing at the thought of all that dirt, the idea of washing his hair flitted through my brain. Here, let me help you with that, I could say. My favorite part of getting my hair done was the scalp massage, and it was the first time I felt compelled to wash anyone’s hair other than my children’s. Something could be seriously wrong with me. We passed by the string of fast food chains I’d sworn off, but da Vinci practically panted like a dog. “What you say, donut holes on way home?” I hadn’t eaten junk food in forty-eight hours. I practically jumped the curb as I screeched into Dunkin Donuts. How I’d missed thee! Da Vinci and I made a great team. We finished off 36 Munchkins in under ten minutes, dunking them in coffee and rolling our eyes in sugared ecstasy. “I love American food,” da Vinci said, patting his tight abs.

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“It’s terrible for you,” I said, popping the last chocolate-cake donut hole in my mouth, savoring the crunchy outside and doughy center. “It will make you fat.” Da Vinci reached over and gently wiped away a large sugar crumb from my lip. “Then we jog extra mile tomorrow morning to work fat off bodies.” Fireworks went off in my head, proof that da Vinci had an effect on me. I’d sworn the only way anyone was getting me to run was to be chasing me with a machete. But to spend more time with da Vinci and possibly lose a few pounds in the process? I’d be an idiot to turn that down. I dropped da Vinci off at the house, reminding him about his early classes at UT the next day. I offered to drive him because I needed to visit the library for more research for my dissertation. Honest. Da Vinci thanked me with his smile, something like a physical tip that was far better than money ever would be. “We ride together,” da Vinci said. “Da Vinci teach Mona Lisa to ride.” It dawned on me he didn’t mean the car, but horses, but I was too caught up by my nickname. Mona Lisa: the famed art of the pseudo-smiling brunette painted in the 1500s and the nickname given to one blonde widow by her sexy tenant. I had figured out the Mona Lisa within Ramona Elise in college in my first linguistics class. My parents hadn’t been that clever on purpose. They had just lumped two family names together as so many expecting parents do: Ramona for my paternal grandmother and Elise for my maternal great-grandmother. It was an accident, yet Anh believed my secret moniker and da Vinci’s appearance were no accident at all. I didn’t mind da Vinci giving me a nickname, forming some bond that only we shared. I never considered bonding with da Vinci on purpose. But it was an unwritten rule that no teacher could date students, so my idea of bonding did not go beyond that of one caring teacher helping out a student.

Dating da Vinci 47 As I stepped into the beautiful marble foyer at the archdiocese where I was to meet with Deacon Friar (a man who had lived up to his moniker, another example of name revealing one’s destiny), I stared at the largest reproduction of the da Vinci’s Last Supper that I’d ever seen. The picture was at least twenty feet wide, so large that I could study the expressions of the disciples and the hands of Jesus, and I shuddered. The work was pure genius. I thought of Joel and our last supper together, the night before his collapse on the basketball court, an hour after our nonverbal argument; we ate pizza, but not just any pizza: Joel’s favorite, the expensive kind we could only afford once a month. It was hand-tossed by an Italian, the short, mustached man who had come to America with only a dream in his back pocket and a recipe for the crispiest yet gooiest pizza I’d ever tasted. I smiled at the memory. I hadn’t thought about Joel’s last supper before that moment. I’d thought about his last breakfast: Wheaties. And his last snack: peanut butter on crackers before he headed out to the park to play a pickup game with the neighbors. But his last real meal had been his favorite, something that suddenly comforted me greatly. When Deacon Friar caught me studying the painting, I hadn’t realized I had tears in my eyes, but not from the artwork. “It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it?” I wiped my eyes and nodded, taking in Deacon Friar’s appearance. I expected him to look more like a friar from the seventeenth century, wearing a brown robe beneath a bald head. Yet he appeared very modern, tall and attractive with salt-and-pepper hair and a face full of compassion that fit his profession. Gabriella had told me he was a widower with two grown boys, and that losing his wife had pushed him into the Church in a way that only a loss of such magnitude could. I had said half-jokingly that I should join a convent after losing Joel. Escaping from the world for nothing but 24/7 silence and solitude had seemed like a good fix at the time, but

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knowing how crazy the quiet around my home made me, I knew it would be even worse if I went somewhere where it was expected. Besides, I was no nun. I felt a kinship with Deacon Friar before our eyes ever met. When they did, I found his to be kind, chocolate-brown eyes beneath dark brows. He wore glasses with tiny silver frames accentuating what already seemed a very intellectual face. He carried himself with ease, and as his warm handshake met my cold hands, I instantly felt him to be my spiritual superior. If spirituality grew along the lines of biology, mine would be considered a toddler, able only to articulate that I believed, but unable to verbalize a deeper understanding of what it was exactly that I believed. To my surprise, I found it easy to open up to Deacon Friar, how my parents had been lapsed Episcopalians before being moved by the sunshine spirituality offered by the megachurch lifestyle: nondenominational, 100 percent rah-rah Christianity. We entered a small courtyard with luxurious gardens and a stone path that led to a fountain with two angels. The courtyard itself might resemble Gabriella’s idea of Heaven. In the last two years, I had lost all sense of beauty, but sitting amidst the majesty of nature, I could feel the appreciation for it stir within me. “So Gabriella told me about your loss. Joel, right? My son’s name is Joel,” he said. Tears welled in my eyes, but I blinked them back. I didn’t get to hear his name said aloud enough. “Yes, Joel. He was thirty-eight. His fortieth birthday would’ve been in a few weeks, on September 30th, a week before the anniversary of his death.” “What did you do for his last birthday? When he was alive.” His question surprised me. I thought back. “Well, Joel made a big deal of birthdays. He was an only child, so to say his parents didn’t spoil him would be an understatement. So we didn’t have birthdays, we had birthday weeks. Every day the birthday boy, or girl in my case,

Dating da Vinci 49 would get to pick one fun thing to do each day, ending with a big party on your actual birthdate.” “Sounds like a joyful spirit. You had at least four fun weeks of celebration during the year.” “Oh, that’s not all. He was really into decorating for the holidays. Not just the usual ones, either. Christmas, of course, Griswold lights and all. Halloween was one of his favorites—orange lights, lots of spider webs and dressing in costume to trick or treat with the boys. For the Fourth of July, he would buy out the fireworks stand and we would go out into the country and create our own fireworks show. And for Easter, Joel enjoyed hiding the eggs as much as the kids enjoyed finding them.” Deacon Friar dug in his pocket and handed me five shiny pennies. “When I leave, I want you to think long and hard about the five wishes you want most of all to come true. Then when you’re ready, you can cast them into the fountain. I like to call them penny prayers. Most people are uncomfortable with the act of praying, and even for devout Christians, praying can be very difficult after you’ve lost the person you were closest to on earth. So I’ve found the penny method works.” I stared at the pennies in my hand. I get wishes? Wishes beyond just wanting Joel to come back, for the past to have never happened? “This is where I’m stuck,” I said. “I seem to have lost all of my dreams when Joel died. We had it all figured out, you know? That we were going to go to Hawaii for his fortieth birthday. That we were going to learn to flamenco dance when the kids were older. That we were going to take a road trip on Route 66. Everything centered around us. I was always more into the ‘we’ than the ‘me.’ And now that it’s just me, I’m lost.” The deacon rested his chin on his hand, looking like The Thinker. “It’s been ten years since I lost my wife. If you’re hoping that the grief will go away, that you’ll be able to move on from missing your husband,

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then you’ll be disappointed. That will never go away. But if you mean you are ready to start enjoying life again, finding pleasure beyond the pain, then that is possible. But I gathered from Gabriella that you’ve been worried not just about your moving on, but Joel’s.” “We never talked about death. Joel kept things light. When he said he would love me forever, I just want to know what that means. I want to know that we’ll be united again.” “Well, if you believe in God and Heaven, then you know that you’ll be united again.” I nodded, trying to explain. “As a linguist, I study the origin of words. I’m a researcher. I guess as far as Heaven goes, I just need a little more research. The details, you know? My mom’s pastor told me I should be happy for Joel, which kind of turned me off about finding out anything else about it. I mean, I’m sorry, but how can I be happy for Joel when I know he didn’t want to die until we grew old together and he got to meet his grandkids and great-grandkids? So even though I should be happy that he is with God, I’m not. There, I said it.” “It’s not fair,” the deacon said thoughtfully. “Not only unfair that he died, but that everyone tells you he now enjoys perfect union with God in the most majestic place we can imagine while you get to raise two boys alone and deal with the anchors of the life he left behind. I felt the same way.” He had taken the hundred-pound weight on my shoulder and tossed it into the fountain. There it was. It was something the other widows and widowers and divorcees had tiptoed around in Parents without Partners, but we hadn’t said those words because it made us sound selfish. Besides the anger and the fear of failure and the enormous sadness, there was jealousy there. I wanted peace and tranquility and to tiptoe through daisies with my husband. “And his soul?” “There’s a lot of debate about when the soul is reunited with the body, but the Catholics believe it is after purgatory, or the cleansing

Dating da Vinci 51 of the earthly life. And the amazing part is, once our souls are reunited with our bodies, we are freed from its slowness of motion with the quickness to go wherever the soul pleases. The Apostle says, ‘It is sown in weakness; it shall rise in power.’” “So Joel can finally make that jump shot he always dreamed of?” The deacon nodded. “That’s right. And even better the soul takes total dominion over the body. ‘It is sown in a natural body, it shall rise a spiritual body.’ So the body becomes more like a spirit. Thus the risen Christ was able to pass through material objects.” “Pass through walls. He’d get a kick out of that. Can I ask you something personal?” “Of course.” “Do you talk to your wife?” “I do sometimes, but it’s normally through prayer. I pray for her soul. It’s not like a séance or something silly like that. If we see ourselves at our essence as spiritual beings, then I see no problem with trying to maintain that spiritual connection. We are all made up of energy, in this life and beyond. So sometimes I tell her that I love her and miss her and am praying for her.” “Do you think they know? What’s going on down here? Like some sort of big plasma screen in the sky that lets them watch us?” I couldn’t help but ask. I hated not knowing if Joel could see Bradley catch the winning pass or how funny William looked with both of his front teeth missing. “I don’t have any evidence on this, of course, so I’m not speaking as a theologian here, but as a widower. I choose to believe they can keep tabs on the lives of loved ones, but it’s not like a nightly news version of what’s happening on earth. If TV news is troubling to us on earth, imagine how it might seem from Heaven. Instead, I think it could be more like a highlight reel. They see images of loved ones as if in a reflecting pool. Nothing distressing, only linking of the spirits. I think they can feel us and feel our prayers for them. Don’t you feel

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him, Ramona? He’ll always be with you right here.” He tapped his own heart with his index finger. I put my hand over mine. “But I thought it was just me missing him, not feeling him. Just my mind playing tricks on me. And I want it to feel good, not sad.” “I think that’s what it really means when we say, ‘Love never dies.’ The spirit never stops loving. So accept it freely.” I let the tears fall. Each time I thought of Joel, it was followed not by fond remembrance, but by anger that he wasn’t there physically or sadness that I could not reach out and touch his wavy brown hair. Perhaps I was Catholic after all. I had the Catholic guilt part down to a T. I’d felt guilty for any happiness since Joel, as if I were betraying his memory. How could I lose the guilt to make room for healthier emotions? “I’ll work on that,” I promised. “And the praying part, too.” I thought back to the forty days after Joel’s death, how Gabriella and her husband had gone to daily mass to pray for Joel for the repose of his soul. I had gone to church a month after the funeral, and in between I had only bitterly thought of my loss. I hadn’t prayed for Joel at all. Had his soul suffered because of it? Did the fact that he’d died with mistrust between us impact his feelings for me now? “Beyond praying for him, the greatest thing you can do is to honor his memory and live the best life you can. From the little bit you’ve told me about Joel, I can imagine how sad he might be that his traditions and spirit of your family died along with him. He was the joy conduit.” “He was. I never realized until he died how much I depended on him for happiness. I’ve been trying for the boys’ sake, but it’s hard. And it takes four neighbors to put up the lights that Joel could do single-handedly. But I’ve been doing everything with a heavy heart.” The deacon made a steeple with his fingers and pointed them at me. “So try doing them with a joyful heart.” He made it sound so simple. First I’d have to cut the cables that kept my heart restrained, one by one. I slipped the pennies in the

Dating da Vinci 53 pocket of my jeans, saving them for when I really knew what I wanted. Five wishes almost seemed extravagant; I wouldn’t spend them frivolously. A half hour later, I sat in the car in front of the Socials building around back of the enormous Life Church campus. I’d promised myself I would give it one chance. One singles mixer and if I felt uncomfortable, I would be out of there faster than a rabbit spotting a wolf. I wore my new outfit, a layered ensemble with a black jacket, black tuxedo pants and a red V-neck cami. Red. I couldn’t believe I was trying to pull it off before I was ready, but it was a touch, a root, a beginning. Deacon Friar had lifted my spirits, convincing me it wasn’t too late to feel connection with Joel, that I could spend an eternity with him, and this news calmed me. It gave me something to look forward to—not just when I died, but right this minute. I gathered the courage, feeling the pennies in my pocket, and entered the building where more than a hundred people between the ages of 25 and 45 gathered. The group was attractive, wearing their finest look-at-me attire and chemical elixirs, the perfume and cologne mingling in an overwhelming potpourri scent. “Welcome to singles,” a pretty twenty-something female said to me as she handed me a sign-in sheet and nametag. I surveyed the room, filled with sad people pretending not to be sad. In one way or another, we were all desperate, each wanting to find that something that would make our lives a little better. The never-been-marrieds were searching for fulfillment and family. The divorcées were looking for second chances, and the widowers were just searching, period. I imagined what we all had in common was the desire for connection, only for the living, but I wasn’t sure anyone in the room could make me feel that. I made my way through the crowd to the bar, where, to my chagrin, no alcohol was served. Life Church would not want to be responsible for hook-ups resulting from beer goggles, would they? I

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accepted an orange spritzer instead, which was just orange juice mixed with Sprite, a sly trick I’d used to get my boys to get their vitamin C. When I spun around I bumped into a handsome man about my age holding an orange drink, too. “I prefer mine with vodka, but what can you do?” he said. “I forgot my flask,” I said, thinking someone this attractive didn’t belong at a singles mixer. He could get any woman he wanted. My blink reaction was that he was either a multiple divorcé or a workaholic womanizer who just came to these things to pick up chicks. (But isn’t that what we were all here, for? I had bought into my mother’s idea of finding a new friend, but once here I could see friendship was the furthest thing from these people’s minds. They were all trying much too hard.) He seemed too happy to be a Griever. He began to respond when a bosomy redhead grabbed him by the arm and whipped him around in a hug reserved for the overly friendly. She looked his type. Maybe he’d already taken her home before, or maybe she was trying to seal the deal, but I had no desire to wait around just to get his name. In fact, I had no desire to be there at all. Besides, I had a friend at home waiting for me. I found da Vinci napping on the back patio with a row of golden mums he had planted appearing like the frame on a beautiful picture. Without thinking, I walked over to his body splayed out in the armchair and ottoman and ran my fingers through his dark hair, causing his lashes to flutter in sleep. He opened his eyes and turned his head, where his lips met the soft skin on the underside of my wrist and kissed it, causing a thousand butterflies to take flight. His eyes locked with mine and he whispered, half asleep, “Ché modo buono di svegliarmi.” He could have said, “Do my laundry,” and it would’ve felt poetic to me at the time, but what he said was far better: “What a nice way to wake up.”

Chapter 5 con·nec·tion \ n 1 : the linking or joining of two or more parts, things, or people (Origin: late Middle English, from Latin) I COULDN’T STOP THINKING about that kiss the rest of the week. I pretended it hadn’t affected me, going about my business as usual, taking da Vinci where he needed to go, his next temp job at a flower shop and classes at UT. I zipped right through the week, soccer and football and chess club and laundry and coffee with my mother and salad with Anh and life should’ve felt exactly as it had before da Vinci arrived in my classroom, but it felt anything but. The only difference in my life came down to a connection, taking me from the lonely dark cave of my sadness out into the light, led by one strongarmed Italian. When you lose a spouse, you can suddenly feel as though the strings to your life have been cut forever, as if you’re an abandoned kite floating aimlessly in the clouds. Like non-stop static on a television screen, the picture becomes fuzzy, the signal lost. The connection is broken forever, like a baby being separated from its mother after birth or downed power lines in an electric storm. This is the way I felt after Joel died. I had lost my connection and didn’t know how to get it back or even if I could. Most spouses in happy marriages know that the best part is shared experiences: making love, making memories, making a life that becomes richer because you have each other. You understand the other

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with just one look or sound. It’s true what they say about partners starting to look like each other as they age. You eat the same food, breathe the same air, go where the other goes. So the absence of one makes the other feel immobile. You literally feel half the person. But after meeting with Deacon Friar, I realized I had it all wrong. My connection to Joel had not been lost, and in some ways, we could be closer than ever. Because instead of him being outside of me, he was within me. He was just on the other side of the universal plane, in the spiritual world, and if I believed that our spiritual relationship had been strong in life, it should be just as strong after death. If I believed our spiritual link could never be broken, then “’til death do us part” would only be the physical separation, but could never snip the cord that linked Joel and me for eternity, right? The very meaning of soul mate in action. Yet doubt had permeated my thoughts since his death, the fear that if we each have only one soul mate, I wasn’t his. If he had believed Monica, his first love, was his soul mate, then what was I? The next best thing? I had grown up to believe in the fairy tale of “happily ever after,” one person to share your life with. But Joel had loved two women in his life, had felt the awesome power of connection, not once, but twice. I thought of her standing in the back of the crowd at his funeral, dressed impeccably in an expensive black suit, her silky black hair cut in a sharp bob about her refined features. Just like in her pictures, she looked like a model who never left the photo shoot. Even in my anger, I could see that she was in pain. She had loved him as much as I had. Seeing her in person after only seeing pictures of them together had made my doubt resurface. Was their connection greater than ours? She was the one thing that kept me from believing our love was eternal. The mystery that was Monica pecked at my faith. If I couldn’t let go of my jealousy and doubt in his life, how could I possibly after his death? Why had my faith taken such a fall?

Dating da Vinci 57 What if before I could move on, I would have to go back, to use one copper penny on resolving the issue once and for all? It was as if Deacon Friar had tossed me a special widow key that gave me permission to unlock a forbidden door. I’m not even sure if deacon knew he had given me a key, but those five pennies, five wishes for a better life, became calling cards for something more. And if I could resolve my issues with Joel and his two great loves, then maybe I could come to terms with the possibility of a connection with somebody other than my husband. I would never have believed it until that kiss on my wrist ignited the wick that I could feel go all through my body and straight into my heart—the stirrings of something so familiar, yet so ancient I could barely recognize it. Of course I was fond of da Vinci. I enjoyed his company, and like most women who laid their eyes on him, I was attracted to him. But besides the student/teacher issue, I expected to feel nothing other than a platonic connection. Romance? Never. Just a fantasy? Perhaps. But I didn’t believe I would ever act on it. Yet I did go horseback riding—I, the one who preferred even a smelly human to animals, rode horseback with da Vinci on a sunny fall afternoon when I should’ve been working on my dissertation. But besides connection, I felt something else: freedom. Freedom to cut loose and do something new and completely unexpected. If I was channeling anything left behind of Joel, it was his passion for adventure, being spontaneous. The next thing I knew, after riding across the field like a painting on a romance novel, da Vinci hopped off of his horse, stopped my horse by grabbing the reins and I nearly leapt into his arms. And on the way down? I kissed him. On the lips. I considered it a “thank you for helping me down kiss” though da Vinci seemed to not think anything of it. They probably kissed in Italy the way we shook hands in America. So I didn’t make a big deal out of that kiss, either. Yet like the first, I couldn’t get it out of my head, either.

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I couldn’t tell Anh about da Vinci’s kiss, because what was there to tell? She might think there was a budding romance, which there certainly wasn’t. Not on my end. If you told Anh something, she wouldn’t let it go. She would call and ask me about it each day, like a doctor checking charts on rounds. And with da Vinci just starting college, he was making all kinds of new friends. The fraternities wanted to rush him, the girls were probably pawing all over him, and that’s the way it should be. My role as his teacher and landlord and friend was to help him find himself in America and that meant making friends outside of my four walls. I told him not to judge the frat boys so quickly, to give things a chance—something I couldn’t believe was coming out of my mouth. I also had my dissertation to attend to, so when I dropped da Vinci off on campus, where he stood out like a beacon in the throng of students, I made my way through the college crowd to the library, where I would dive back in to my work. It wasn’t until I cracked open the notebook that I hadn’t touched since the week before Joel died, that the enormity of the work hit. The Language of Love. I scanned my notes—more than forty hours of research and thought had already been put into it. Should I scrap the whole thing and ask my professor for a new topic? But what? And my notes were really good. I had stopped working on it, in truth, because I had lost connection to the material, too. But now I could begin to appreciate the topic of love again, as someone might appreciate fine art, detached, but drawn to the subject. I would no longer see love through the blurred eyes of grief, but try to be objective. Besides, I wanted to finish what I’d started, a way to prove to myself that love does go on after your husband dies and especially that a dissertation on the language of love could survive even death. I did still have dreams, the biggest dream to be a professor with a doctorate. I grabbed the laptop from my attaché case and clicked it on, the hum causing a few stares from all directions. I slunk into my seat and began typing, the material beginning to pull me in.

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The Language of Love —By Ramona Griffen Where does love begin, and where does it end? Anthropologists who have studied love claim that for millions of years the ever-changing world has not changed the primal instinct of love, mating, and sexuality. Though technology and evolution have morphed the way in which we live, the language of love is the one constant in the universe, transcending time and cultures. And researchers say it all begins with one look. The eyes have it. Across cultures and even species, lovers begin their courtship with a flirting sequence highlighted by the copulatory gaze. As the potential mates stare at each other for two to three seconds, the pupils dilate, indicating a strong interest, and then look away. This powerful gaze is followed by an anxious diversion, fidgeting, or moving away, or it is reciprocated with another universal friendly exchange: the smile. My cell phone buzzed, causing more angry warning glares, quite the opposite of the copulatory gaze, and I reached into my overstuffed bag to retrieve it. I whispered hello as I beelined for the entrance. “You’ve got to help me.” Rachel. “Don’t tell me. You gained a pound in San Francisco and need me to stand by you to make you look slimmer.” “Very funny, though not a bad idea. Zoe is at Cortland’s having a play date with his daughter, but my lame-brained assistant doublebooked me, and I can’t get over there. Can you be a doll and go pick her up for me? Mom’s at a church thing and won’t leave.” “So you’re dating the doctor, huh?”

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I would give my sister the benefit of the doubt and believe she liked Cortland for Cortland and not because of his estate, a 3,500square-foot, two-story house in a historic neighborhood where all the movers and shakers of Austin lived. Every mover and shaker, that is, except my enviro-friendly Anh who preferred her 1,200-square-foot modern abode near her corporate office. I stood on the porch wondering if I’d ever seen such a huge front door and felt like a munchkin in the Land of Oz. Even the doorbell’s sound was larger than life, echoing through tall ceilings, announcing my arrival as if I were a lady of the court. When the door opened, our eyes locked. One. Two. Three seconds. Then we both looked away. And back again. I couldn’t tell for sure—the afternoon sun could’ve been playing tricks on me, but I thought maybe his pupils were dilated. Then he raised his arm on the doorframe and puffed out his chest, a classic gesture of dominance and flirtation. It happened so quickly that I hadn’t even realized that I had cocked my head slyly and tossed my hair over my shoulder. I was flirting back. Not just with the orange juice spritzer man from the singles mixer who had been nabbed by the redhead, but with my sister’s boyfriend. Two thoughts ran through my head: 1) Why was he at a singles mixer if he was dating my sister, and 2) why, oh, why is life not fair? He stuck his hand out for me to shake, yet my eyes never left his. “You must be Rachel’s sister,” he said. “Ramona,” I said, and my cool hand met his warm embrace and before he let go, he gave my hand a slight squeeze, and I entered the

Dating da Vinci 61 oversized foyer with a beautiful entry table, large sconces with vanilla candles and fresh fall flowers. I thought of da Vinci, spending his days arranging flowers, something that most men would be terrible at, yet da Vinci had the artistic eye for color and contrast and said he loved the work. “Cortland,” he said and put his hand behind his head and scratched his neck, another common flirting tactic. I tried not to smile and wondered if I was reading him wrong. He was handsome for certain, tall and well-built with a natural tan and a full head of blondish-brown hair that shone in the sun. “I was disappointed you disappeared the other night,” he said. “Small world, isn’t it?” “Indeed. Are you a singles regular?” “Hoping to retire,” he said, his fingers crossed. “I’m the current president.” “President of the Lonely Hearts Club?” “Something like that. Your sister didn’t tell me you were so funny.” “Surprise, surprise.” Who knows what she said about me? Of course the most attractive man at the singles group would be the leader type: the kind who wouldn’t stay single for long. My mother had mentioned Rachel and Cortland had seen each other every day since meeting. When my sister saw something she wanted, she put her hooks in and didn’t let go. Cortland didn’t stand a chance. Not that he’d be squirming to get off the hook, either. “The girls are upstairs in the playroom,” he said. As I began to follow him up, a German shepherd bolted from around the corner, skidded on the tile and leapt up to kiss my face before sniffing my crotch. “Down, Leibe,” Cortland said. “Liebe. German for love. Great name.” “Thanks. My mother is German, so in a way, I guess I named her after my mom. Sounds better than Phyllis. You have dogs?”

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“No, but my boys have been wanting one for years. My husband and I said they could have one as soon as they started keeping their rooms clean and doing all their chores without complaining.” “So, never, in other words?” “Something like that. I’ve never been a dog person. But I don’t know. I’m thinking maybe it’s time.” I followed Cortland up the stairs, trying not to stare at his behind, but well, it was right in my face, and I figured he must be a cyclist or runner with such a toned backside. What did I have to lose? “So I noticed the walking trails in your neighborhood. Do you run or bike?” “Both,” Cortland said. Of course. A doubly fit behind. “You have a beautiful home.” “Thank you.” We reached the playroom, an enormous pink and green room filled with everything a princess, or daughter of a divorced doctor, might desire. “Zoe, your aunt is here to pick you up.” Zoe pouted. “Oh, Auntie. Do I have to go so soon?” Her language of manipulation worked like a charm. “You know how hard it is for me to a be a lonely child.” “You mean an only child,” I corrected. Zoe shrugged. “That, too.” Lindsey, Cortland’s daughter, put her arm protectively around Zoe. She was a full two heads taller and years older, but the two had clearly bonded. The bond of lonely onlies. Cortland raised his brow. I could tell he was the type who gave in easily. “We could get a cup of coffee unless you’re in a hurry.” I glanced at my watch. Da Vinci would be out of class in an hour and he was going with me to Bradley’s football game. I hadn’t wanted Bradley to play football—too dangerous, I thought—but he was good at it, a born quarterback, and in the two weeks since da Vinci arrived, he had someone other than the neighbors and me (a terrible passer and receiver) to throw the ball with. Da Vinci was adept at those skills, too.

Dating da Vinci 63 “One cup,” I said, and the girls cheered and Cortland smiled again, this time a wide smile, all teeth showing, eyes turned up on the ends, reserved for the truly happy. I began to think he wanted to have a cup of coffee with me for me. A ludicrous thought, really. While he went into the kitchen to get our coffee, I stepped into his office. You could tell a lot about a person by the books he read, and as a linguist, it was the first thing I studied. Cortland’s shelves were full of medical dictionaries—expected, and a few literary works—some Poe and Dickens, and on the bottom shelf, the popular fiction—Nick Hornby and a dozen thrillers. His desk was orderly with only one picture, a silver frame with a close-up of Lindsey when she was younger. Then a neat stack of magazines, Sports Illustrated, Time, and on top, Austin Living, the local magazine of the affluent. The glossy cover showed a beautiful fall entryway, one as nearly oversized as Cortland’s. I picked it up to study it closer, then dropped it as if it had caught fire. See the home of Austin Young Lawyer of the Year Monica Blevins. I’d thrown out the copy my mother had brought me, but as soon as the trash truck had taken it away, I’d regretted throwing it out. I’d made up my mind to confront Monica, but first I had to do my research. My heart picked up speed, and I plucked it from the desk and turned to page forty-eight where Monica sat in her exquisite living room with her dog at her feet and her daughter Rose lying peacefully in her lap. I stared at Monica’s face, thinking if I stared long enough I would feel something, understand something, but the longer I stared, the longer I wanted to rip the magazine to pieces and hated myself for wanting to do it. Because what had Monica done that was so wrong, really? Being born into a wealthy family that could afford private school where she’d met Joel Griffen in elementary school and, later, beginning an eight-year love affair that ended with breaking off their engagement one week before the wedding? Shouldn’t I be thankful to her for not going through with it? If she had, I wouldn’t have

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gotten my chance with Joel. And just because she personally hired Joel’s architectural firm to build her new law office didn’t mean she wanted to have an affair with him or that all those morning, lunch or after-work drinks were anything other than work. Right. Sure, I could rip the pages out of the magazine but I could not rip Monica out of Joel’s history. She would always be there, the woman who had shared nearly one-third of Joel’s years on earth. “You know Monica?” Cortland said as he handed me the cup of coffee. The way he said it, so lightly, it was as if everyone knew Monica, and I’m sure everyone who was anyone knew Monica or the ones who read this magazine and who lived in this neighborhood knew Monica, but no one knew Monica the way I knew her. I cleared my throat. “I know of her. I suppose you know her then.” “She’s married to a friend of mine.” “A doctor?” “No. A lawyer.” Two lawyers. No wonder they could afford this neighborhood. I remembered back. Of course. The man she left Joel for, the one she studied with at law school. Not just any guy, but Joel’s best friend since they were toddlers. Another part of the story Judith refused to talk with me about. I don’t know why I suddenly felt sorry for Joel, but I did. Maybe I believed it should be Joel on the page with Rose and the dog and the designer couch in a house Joel probably would’ve built, his dream house that we couldn’t afford because we’d decided I should stay home and raise our kids, not that Joel would’ve wanted it any different. My parttime job at the Panchal Center had been more for an intellectual reward than financial. The graduate classes Joel encouraged me to take had meant sacrificing vacations and the extras people like Monica could afford. “You can take the magazine. I’ve read it,” he said. And thinking about the copper pennies, I accepted his offer and pushed her from my mind for the moment. There would be time to deal with her later.

Dating da Vinci 65 I hadn’t meant for the article to sour my mood, but thankfully, Cortland was a natural conversationalist. Within no time, I was at ease with him. We drank our coffee on the veranda amidst beautiful gardens not unlike the ones I’d visited at the archdiocese. I scanned my memory for info on Cortland. “I hear you play golf with my dad.” “Yeah. We hit a few balls every now and then. Your dad’s a great guy. Mine passed a few years ago.” “I’m sorry to hear that.” “Yeah. It’s been interesting. My mom just started dating again. Through church, of course. The Singles Again group. Not an easy thing to see your mother get back out there. I went to two socials with her, and if it’s not embarrassing enough to have your mother try to set you up behind your back, it’s even worse right in front of you.” “I’m sure your mom’s a great matchmaker, but you’re kind of an easy sell. The whole handsome doctor thing can’t hurt.” Cortland laughed, and I wondered if I’d said too much. My foot-in-mouth disease was aggravated around handsome men. “Well, maybe I should introduce myself as a grocer and see if that makes a difference.” “See if they like you for you and not the white coat.” I tried to imagine if my sister would be interested in him if he were just a handsome grocer instead of a handsome anesthesiologist. Nope. Afraid not. “I’d stick with the doctor route. Honesty is usually the best policy. So your mom and my mom conspired to get you and Rachel together. You two must’ve hit it off.” Cortland studied me before answering, clearly thinking before he spoke. “Your sister has more energy than all the doctors at Mercy combined.” So he likes her zest, her zeal for life. Well, who wouldn’t? Passion oozed from that sparkly smile, and while I still believed half of it was for show, she did manage to pull it off. “Have you seen her show?” “No. But I’ve seen the billboards for more than a year.”

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The one Anh and I called “the boob billboard.” Rachel had the shot done right after her implants, when she was still a little swollen. Her network swears her viewership rose three points after the board went up. “What, no TiVo? I TiVo her. It’s the least a sister can do.” He shrugged. “Busy, I guess. But why watch her on TV when you can get the real thing?” This time I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t mean in bed. I looked beyond the garden at the pool, remembering it was Rachel’s first question to my mother about him. “I’m glad Lindsey and Zoe have hit it off, too. Zoe’s had a rough couple of years with the divorce and …” I nearly added having my sister as a mother. “Lindsey’s always wanted a sister. Or brothers. Rachel tells me you have two boys. That must be a handful.” Even with a husband. “They’re great. They are definitely the bright spot in my day.” “What does your husband do?” I could feel myself blush. Rachel had told him about the boys, but not that I’m a widow? It had taken me a full year to stop answering yes when someone asked me if I was married. Now I simply said no. If they pressed, I told them I was a widow, but unlike my sister, I didn’t seek any sympathy. He wore what was surely his compassionate doctor’s face. The one people saw right before they started counting backwards, imagining little Cortland sheep hurdling over a picket fence. “I’m sorry. Rough subject.” “Oh, it’s okay. I just thought Rachel would’ve told you. My husband died two years ago. Heart attack.” Cortland’s smile fell. He seemed embarrassed he hadn’t been told as well. “God, I’m sorry. The last couple of years have had to be hell on you.” I caught my breath. “Thank you. Yes. As a matter of fact, it has been exactly like hell. Though Pastor Feelgood never said those words to me.”

Dating da Vinci 67 “Pastor Feelgood. That fits him, doesn’t it? I’m afraid I may never be able to call him by his real name again. How come I’ve never seen you in church?” “You mean you didn’t spot me among the 10,000 other attendees?” “Fair enough. But I think I could pick you out in a crowd.” He raised his eyebrows. I did the same. I felt the coffee swirl inside of me, and I fidgeted to break whatever connection was forming between us, especially so soon after mentioning my husband’s name. My sister wanted this man, or at least his pool. I was just the driver, her personal assistant for the day. I should go. “Well, thanks for the coffee. I have to pick up da Vinci before Bradley’s game.” Cortland stood and stretched again, puffing his chest towards me. “Did you just say you had to pick up da Vinci?” I laughed. “He’s an immigrant student of mine that’s living in my garage studio. His name really is Leonardo da Vinci. And to answer your question earlier, my husband Joel was an architect. A very good architect. He actually designed your hospital.” “Wow. He did great work. The hospital is a masterpiece.” “Thank you. I’m sure he’d be happy to hear that.” “And I’d love to meet this da Vinci of yours.” “So would my sister. We’ll have you over soon.” I noticed I had said we as if da Vinci and I were together. “I mean, I’ll have you all over to my house soon. Although it’s nothing like this.” Cortland waved it away. “This was my wife’s idea. Ex-wife’s. She would’ve wanted the house in the divorce, only the guy she left me for has a house twice this size.” “Ouch.” “Very ouch. But looking back, it’s better this way. And I’m actually thinking of downsizing. I prefer a cozy little space.” “Don’t tell that to my sister.” He scrunched his brow. “What do you mean?”

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I shrugged, regretting opening my big mouth. “Oh, nothing. I just mean I’m sure she really likes your house. And your pool.” “It does have a nice hot tub,” he said. “It’s nice to get in with a cup of hot chocolate when it’s snowy outside. That I’ll invite you over for. I mean, Rachel and I will invite you and da Vinci over.” Our eyes locked again, and I wanted to make a snide remark about hell freezing over before I’d get in a hot tub with my hard-bodied sister, but I didn’t think that was really the point. The point, if I was really paying attention, was that we had just made two plans to see each other again.

Chapter 6 A FEW THINGS GRIEVERS don’t do: We won’t tell you to look at the “bright side”; we steer clear of couples’ hang-outs; and we absolutely, unequivocally avoid weddings like vampires shun sunlight. The blushing bride and tearful groom and gaggle of well-wishers and sweet sanctimony don’t sit well with my kind. We tend to ignore any nuptial events that come our way. (We have nothing against you lovebirds; it’s just best not to throw acid into a seeping wound.) We normally send a nice Target gift card instead. But this wedding invite could not be swept under the rug or stashed in a file because the bride was none other than the daughter of Mahatma Panchal, as in the Panchal Center for Cultural Diversity, as in my boss. Besides, Griever or not, I had watched his American-born daughter Marcy sprout from a curious ten-year-old to the girl who gave the commencement speech as the valedictorian at her high school and again when she received her engineering degree from UT four years later. And now, how could I not be there to celebrate her next journey just because it involved love? I had attended nearly every type of cultural wedding over the years, and even though Marcy was marrying a white man, she had decided on a traditional Hindu ceremony, one of my favorites. Before I lost Joel, weddings had become a sort of hobby for us. I rarely turned down a wedding invite and with so many students each semester I got my share of them. I’d seen them all: Jewish and Greek

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and Christian and Catholic. But a Pakistani wedding was right up there with Vietnamese in my book: colorful and long and full of symbolism, something every great linguist admires. Joel had made fun of our pastime, and like most guys, generally preferred skipping the wedding ceremony and going straight for the reception, preferably with a stocked bar and lots of food. When we were on a tight budget, sometimes weddings were our very own date nights, and each time, at the close of the reception when we were among the last dancers on the dance floor, Joel would rub his nose against mine and whisper, “I do.” And I would answer with a kiss, “I do, too.” This small renewal of our vows had become my favorite part of our wedding nights, and we enjoyed our very own honeymoon each time after, our lovemaking revitalized by the romance of the affair. Post-Joel, weddings altogether lost their sparkle for me, not just because Joel would not be my date, but because I did not believe I could celebrate in coupledom as a widow. I thought my very presence there would send a signal of half-support, of what “could happen” if the other perishes. I know this half-empty-cup mentality was just my excuse for avoiding any more undue suffering, but this day and this night, I felt like celebrating. Anh, my date for the evening, remained a strong believer in eloping after three failed marriages, but with the promise of free booze and a buffet, she agreed to come. “I say, ‘save your money for the honeymoon, because if you break up later, at least you got a decent vacation out of it.’” “Please don’t repeat that this evening.” “What? As if half the guests wouldn’t agree with me. You know I say half because that’s the divorce rate, right? And what good is having a ceremony and a blessing when you can just change your mind, anyway? No one’s going to hold their feet to that sacred fire they’re going to walk around tonight, I’ll tell you that.”

Dating da Vinci 71 “We’re seating you in the bitter section at the far corner of the church,” I told her. “Come on. Just suspend your ill will toward Cupid for one evening. Can you do that for me?” Anh turned to face da Vinci in the back seat, where he sat in perfect view in my mirror. I had stolen glances at him the entire twenty minutes to the church, and it seemed he had never taken his eyes off of the rearview (hence, off of me). “What do you say, da Vinci, are you a hopeless romantic or a skeptic like your namesake?” Da Vinci smiled broadly. “My namesake loved all beauty, and what can be more beautiful than two people in love?” Anh stuck her finger in her mouth as if to gag. “I’m seriously going to be sick. This car is full of sappy romantics. So you’re telling me that you actually like weddings? Because most American men despise them.” Da Vinci had shrugged his massive shoulders. “As you say, hopeless romantic. Only Italians maybe ten times more than Americans.” Anh shook her head. “And how you keep this one as far away as the backyard, I’ll never understand.” She turned back and faced da Vinci again. “Have you met any girls you like at school yet?” “Many pretty girls, but not mature enough.” Anh raised her hand. “I need to book a one-way ticket to Italy, don’t I? See American men love immature girls. And Leonardo, if you want mature, I’ll give you mature.” She raised a brow to me as if to say, why not? When we arrived, da Vinci went through the service entrance where he would work for Panchal’s catering company, which was started primarily as a way for Panchal to help employ the new immigrant students. I entered with him to say hello to my former students when Barack, a Nigerian who managed the catering company, spotted me and wrapped me in a hug. “How is my favorite teacher?” “Excited about the wedding. My purse is full of nothing but Kleenex.”

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“You always were a sentimental one,” Barack said, reminding me of how hard I cried at his graduation. I couldn’t help it. To see them come over, sometimes with fewer than a dozen words of English and transform themselves into often brilliant communicators amazed me. “Leonardo is my best employee,” Barack said as da Vinci grabbed his first silver platter and headed into the reception hall. “What is it the man cannot do?” “I haven’t figured that out yet,” I told him. “Cecelia said he can do everything he’s asked to do, but the one complaint we get back is when he thinks he’s done with a project, he’s done. Just stops working and starts daydreaming. Or writing things in his notebook.” “Well, here there is no time to daydream. Only smile and keep bringing the food.” Barack shrugged. “And what about you? You look great. Working out to your sister’s show, eh?” “No. I’ve actually started running in the mornings after the kids go to school. With da Vinci.” Barack raised his brow. “So he is good personal trainer, too, correct?” “You could say that,” I said, rubbing Barack’s arm as a way to end the conversation. Personal trainer. Gardener. Football coach to Bradley. Chess buddy to William. And cook for us all. The only way not to gain weight from having da Vinci in my life was to watch what I ate when he wasn’t around and not insult him by not eating when he was. And running three miles every morning, rain or shine, our steps in sync as we drew long stares from the neighbors. The pounds were finally coming off. I said goodbye to the crew and slipped into the church and next to Anh, who was staring intently at a man three rows up. She elbowed me in the ribs. “You know the only good thing about weddings is that occasionally you can meet a nice man, or at least one who you think is nice at first.” The lights were dimmed so I couldn’t make out who she was staring at, but he did have a nice head with thick, blondish-brown hair.

Dating da Vinci 73 He seemed to be alone, probably why Anh assumed he was available. “Make sure he doesn’t slip away,” Anh whispered as the music began to play. “I want that one.” We drew our eyes to the back of the church where Marcy and Panchal began to walk down the aisle. Marcy wore a red dress, a sari, symbolizing happiness. Since she was the only one allowed to wear red at the wedding, she could be spotted like a cardinal among sparrows. Her hands and feet were decorated with henna, called mehandi, in highly exotic, intricate patterns. It was believed that the deeper the color, the stronger her love for her husband. Her silken black hair was in a bun covered with a crown and veil, and sandalwood had been artistically applied to her face in the same design as her crown. One look at her made me weep. It wasn’t just the red—she embodied happiness and I was at once envious and happy for her. For all the mixers and place settings and toasters she would get, there was no greater gift than that feeling. If only I could’ve wrapped that up and put it in a time capsule for her to open on a distant day in the future when she may forget what it feels like. Instead, I got her a clock, but not the clock I wanted to give her—the one that allows time to stand still or even go backwards—but had to settle for a regular stainless steel number that ticks on and on infinitely. But still. Her groom, Thomas, looked equally happy as he awaited her at the altar, wearing a white silk brocade suit, sword and turban— slightly unusual looking on a Caucasian male, but worn with pride. White flowers were tied in suspended strings over his forehead where sandalwood was decorated with gold, red, and white dots. The Hindu wedding, a sacrament called Sanskara, brings together the spirit (Purush) with matter (Prakritti), emphasizing three core values: happiness, harmony and growth. Though the names of the wedding traditions were different, it shared many of the elements of an American wedding: the father giving away the bride (Kanyadan), and the unity candle (Havan), which is the Lighting of the Sacred Fire. The

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couple invokes Agni, the god of Fire, to witness their commitment to each other (the part Anh has a problem with). Crushed sandalwood, herbs, sugar, rice and oil are offered by the bride and groom into the fire. Instead of the exchange of rings, they performed the Tying of the Nuptial Knot (Gath Bandhan), with scarves placed around the bride and groom, symbolizing their eternal bond, and pledged to love each other and remain faithful. Next, they walked around the fire four times, each circle representing goals in life: Dharma, for religious and moral duties; Artha, for prosperity; Kama, meaning earthly pleasures; and Moksha, spiritual salvation and liberation. Marcy led the walk first, representing her determination to stand beside her husband in happiness and sorrow. Next they took Seven Steps Together (Saptapardi) to signify the beginning of their lives together, each step signifying a marital vow. First step: To respect and honor each other Second step: To share each other’s joy and sorrow Third step: To trust and be loyal to each other Fourth step: To cultivate appreciation for knowledge, values, sacrifice and service Fifth step: To reconfirm their vow of purity, love, family duties and spiritual growth Sixth step: To follow principles of Dharma (righteousness) Seventh step: To nurture an eternal bond of friendship and love My heart swelled with pride, as I could honestly say Joel and I had tried to live up to every one of those vows. We had only stumbled on step three, or it felt more like being tripped, when Monica Blevins tried to get Joel back. I wanted to give Joel the benefit of the doubt that he was not the pursuer. I braced myself for whatever I would learn and then that would be that. No matter what, it would not change the fact that I loved

Dating da Vinci 75 him. It wasn’t my love I had doubted. No, that wouldn’t falter. I just wish I didn’t care so much about his love for me. As I watched Marcy and Thomas receive their blessing, I felt with every fiber of my being that Joel and I had been blessed. Our marriage was not perfect—none are—but we were blessed with joy and two boys who would live on as our legacy. Thomas applied a small dot of vermilion, a powdered red mineral lead, to the bride’s forehead, welcoming her as his partner for life. This was the act that set loose the tears, the simple act of a groom touching his bride. Out of all the things that I missed about Joel, this was highest among them. I often tried to close my eyes and recall his touch—how his body felt pressed up against mine, where my head rested on his collarbone when we hugged, how his fingers felt interlocked with mine. And right there, where Thomas placed the dot in the middle of her forehead, is where Joel kissed me every day after returning home from work. His lips had been soft and warm, and that kiss seemed to release the stress of my day. “You’re home,” I would say as if now everything in the world would be better because of it. Anh had dug into my purse and handed me the Kleenex because, as usual, I didn’t feel the tears on my face. I was so accustomed to crying, as if it were second nature. But these were happy tears. I could hear Deacon Friar’s advice: try them with a joyful heart. I could feel Joel inside of me there and it was good. When the ceremony ended and we followed the long line to the reception and full seven-course meal, Anh pinched my arm again, tugging and pulling me to reach the man whose back of the head she had fallen for. Just as we entered the reception hall, she purposely bumped into him, and he turned around. As Anh apologized profusely to the handsome man, his eyes met mine. “Don’t tell me,” I said. “You play golf with Panchal, too.” “Lion’s Club,” he said.

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“When are you not moving and shaking?” I asked, and Anh gasped because I knew this man and she (the mover and shaker among us) did not, or perhaps she had noted the lilt of friendliness in my voice. “Anh,” I said. “This is Dr. Cortland Andrews.” And as she tossed her hair and tilted her head flirtatiously, I noticed he did not puff his chest in response. And I hesitated to add, “My sister’s boyfriend.” FFF

As luck would have it, Panchal had seated us at the same table as Cortland. Panchal was not only adept at helping foreigners fit in to America, he helped love misfits fit in, too. Or at least he was skilled at grouping us together. We were in for a long evening together, and I drank in the glamour of the food and the wine and the conversation like a starved child. I noticed da Vinci had traded with another server to get our table, and he always served me first. I was probably drunk from his attention, too. Halfway into the evening, Cortland leaned behind Anh, who was seated between us, and said, “I think someone is smitten,” and I thought he must’ve meant me until he raised his eyebrow each time da Vinci smiled at me, but only half-smiled (lips closed) to the other guests. The last time Cortland raised his eyebrow, I shrugged an acknowledgement. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps da Vinci was smitten with me, the woman who had taken him in, who had washed his soccer shorts and socks alongside my sons’ and made him pancakes on the weekends and run alongside him every morning. For better or for worse, I had become da Vinci’s modern patron. I knew we had become friends, but besides that kiss on the wrist and my dismount peck, there had been nothing to indicate our friendship was going anywhere. “Shall we dance?” Cortland asked, finally. I’d been wanting to dance all evening, but feeling much like a wallflower, had not asked

Dating da Vinci 77 anyone. (Dances are normally considered a Couples activities for Normals, and being a widow wallflower is sadder than being a normal wallflower.) Joel would’ve liked this reception, maybe not all the ingredients in the food, but definitely the bar. The American aspect of the reception, Thomas’s one request, was the full bar, and the bartender knew how to mix even the latest fad drink. “Have you decided on a dog yet?” Cortland said as we spun around the dance floor. “A dog? Oh, a dog. No, I’ve been pretty busy. Besides, I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Big dog, little dog, yappy dog, guard dog, and so on and so on. It’s a big commitment.” “Ten to twenty years. My dad was a vet, so I’d be happy to help with your search.” Joel and I thought we had time to get a dog for the boys. Ten or twenty years seems like nothing to a young couple. Now I almost wanted a dog just to prove that I thought I would live another twenty, thirty, forty years or more. “I think I’ll take you up on that.” A date for doggy shopping? I have no idea why the thought of that excited me, but it felt like one thing I wouldn’t have to do by myself. “I found out more about what you do for a living,” Cortland added. Rachel says you’re kind of like a Mother Theresa. I think her exact words were, “Who else would want to teach English to a bunch of immigrants?’” “That oozes with pride. She makes me sound like a volunteer who’s taken in stray cats. She wouldn’t be the first person who doesn’t see immigrants as flesh and blood feeling humans. They aren’t a charity case.” “I never said they were. Panchal is one of my dear friends. He had nothing but great things to say about you.” “Is there anyone you don’t know?” “My father used to say there are two types of people. Those who know many people a little bit and those who know a few people very well. I guess I fall into the first, but would prefer the second.”

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“More intimate connections.” He pulled me in closer to him. “Exactly. It’s the few people that mean the most that should matter. I get the feeling you’re the second type.” “Bingo. Only I do know a lot of immigrants.” “And one immigrant very well.” “Da Vinci?” “Are you two dating?” “Dating da Vinci? That would be an odd match.” Cortland couldn’t have been more direct and I couldn’t truthfully answer yes or no, because we were somewhere in the middle. “Really? Well, you know what they say about opposites attracting. And I see the way he looks at you.” I wanted to change the subject. “Did my sister mention I’m getting a PhD in linguistics?” “Wow. She left that part out. Probably so as not to make me feel dumb. I might start watching every word I say because you might dissect it later.” “Root. Origin. Meaning. Subtext.” “No wonder you knew the meaning of Leibe’s name. Then there’s the whole body language thing, too. Do you know much about that?” I could talk on it all evening, but I couldn’t share that I had been watching couples everywhere I went for the signals of love through body language. I couldn’t tell him that he had shown signs of flirting with me when I first met him and that he exhibited “excuse touching,” the next stage in the tactile messages of attraction. He had touched my arm when we talked and had grabbed my hand to lead me on to the dance floor. He might get the wrong idea. Some people were just more touchy-feely than others. It probably came with his profession, and only someone deficient in touch as I had been the last two years would read so much into it. Cortland obviously paid attention to whatever was happening between da Vinci and me.

Dating da Vinci 79 “Actually my dissertation is on the language of love. Even Rachel doesn’t know that.” “I’d love to read it,” he said. “Fascinated with language, are you?” “You know how we men of science are. We like to prove everything,” he said. “Love is the great enigma of the universe. The chemistry, biology, pheromones, hormones and the mystery in falling in love. How can that not be fascinating?” I began to feel flustered with all the talk of pheromones and chemistry mixed with the smell of his cologne and the vodka coursing through my blood, and nearing that time of night where Joel normally told me he would take me for his wife all over again, and then take me literally. Fortunately, the song was over and as I headed to get my purse and my inebriated best friend, I noticed da Vinci out of the corner of my eye and when I turned to him, he crossed his arms, his body language clearly angry and jerked the kitchen door open and slipped inside.

Chapter 7 Greek to Me: Ancient Love The language of love took written form thousands of years ago, with great philosophers like Plato and Aristotle tackling the meaning, seeking truth by Eros. Eros (éro¯s) is passionate love, with sensual desire and longing. The modern Greek word “eratos” means “romantic love.” Plato believed eros helps the soul recall knowledge of beauty and contributes to an understanding of spiritual truth. “ARE YOU DONE YET?” da Vinci stood over my shoulder, looking down at my laptop. Nothing like a hot Italian to make me forget about my Greek. Of this I was sure: Plato got it right. Love is the Highest Good. Provides the ultimate meaning found in human beings. And I was so sure I’d never experience eratos again that the very thought of romance felt Greek to me. Which made the fact that da Vinci wanted my attention all the more mesmerizing. Being interrupted meant there was someone to interrupt me, and it wasn’t to find his missing sneaker or fetch him a snack. “No. I probably won’t be done for weeks.” “That won’t do,” da Vinci said, taking my hand and pulling me out of my seat. “Do you see outside?”

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I surveyed the back yard, where the crisp orange leaves had nearly all fallen to the ground. “Time to rake.” Da Vinci shook his head. “No. We do this.” He handed me a flyer that he got who knows where. I knew he couldn’t read it all, probably the sight words, but his comprehension was aided by the photos of couples drinking wine at a festival. “Eat. Drink.” “Be merry?” The wine festival was at least an hour into the country at a local vineyard that had gotten a lot of press. Joel and I had talked about going to a wine festival for years, but they seemed to always conflict with college football Saturdays, and in fact, so did this one. Bradley was on the couch now, watching the Longhorns play the Sooners in Dallas for their annual Big River rivalry. Bradley was decked out in his burnt-orange football jersey that Joel had given him for his birthday. It was too snug on him now and I’d offered to buy him a new one, but that wasn’t the point. He liked it because his father gave it to him, and seeing how much he’d grown was a painful reminder of how quickly things change. The boys were growing every day, while for the longest time, I felt I’d been shrinking. But today seemed like a gorgeous day to grow. Only I couldn’t possibly just leave for the day with da Vinci. William grabbed the flyer from my hands. “Cool. I think you guys should go. I’ll rake the leaves, Mom.” I shook my head. “You’ll what? Are you feeling okay? You’ve never offered to do the chores before.” “It’s fine. You two go and have a great time and when you get back, we’ll make chili for dinner. I found Dad’s recipe, and da Vinci has never eaten chili before. Especially good Texas chili.” Da Vinci nodded enthusiastically. Were the two of them in on this together? “But we’re supposed to play Scrabble,” I told him. “You’ve been waiting all week.” William pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose and shrugged. “The sunny day won’t last forever and Scrabble will. We’ll play tomorrow.”

Dating da Vinci 83 “Are you sure?” I could feel the guilt of spending a day with da Vinci in the sun melt away with each reassuring word from my son. “What about you, Bradley?” “Whatever,” Bradley said, which was his way of giving permission. An hour later, the boys were back home with a neighborhood sitter while we were out in the country, which felt the same as being on another planet. The change in da Vinci was perceptible; he was more at ease in the country, as if we were closer to his homeland. Even though we were in the middle of nowhere, we were surrounded by food vendors and throngs of people who had done just as we had and gotten away from it all. Da Vinci took my hand as we made our way through the crowd to the wine tables where we could sample a dozen wines, and I was surprised at how comfortable his hand felt in mine. We took our first glass of wine—a white, sweet varietal—and plopped down right in the middle of two dozen blankets around us, filled by couples and even young families. I wondered if we should’ve brought the boys, but I knew Bradley would’ve complained about missing the game and I would have to be the mom instead of what, da Vinci’s date? He was progressing further in his English than my other students, something that made me feel guilty because of the individual attention I was giving him. He had begun to make friends at UT, though he felt too old to join a fraternity, where he said they care only about guzzling beer and meeting girls. He surprised me, considering he had asked me the first day if I could hook him up with Jessica Simpson. As far as I could tell, he hadn’t dated anyone on campus, though he had gone to a few study groups. Da Vinci lay back on the blanket, his hands behind his head and stared up at the clouds. “This is my idea of Heaven,” he said. “A wine festival?” “A beautiful place with a beautiful woman.” He reached up and touched his thumb to my cheek. I took his hand and kissed it,

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forgetting for the moment that we were surrounded by people, but they were safe, strangers. It had been so long since I had just sat and relaxed that it took me two glasses of wine to unwind. Finally I lay on the blanket next to da Vinci, propped on my side. I could’ve stared at him all afternoon. People pay for cable and you know what? Women would much rather pay to watch a beautiful man breathe, just inches from you, close enough that you can smell his shampoo and aftershave. “Tell me what you think about when you daydream. And what do you write in that notebook of yours?” Da Vinci removed the notebook from the back pocket of his jeans, but didn’t show it to me. “I wondered if you would ask. Inquisitive teacher. I dream about everything. I dream about home, about mother and sisters and nieces and nephews. My grandparents had small vineyard, so my memories of them are going to stomp grapes and even as child, you get to drink wine at dinner table. Make me feel very grown. I think how much they would like you. My sisters always read magazines picturing American women with blonde hair. First woman I saw on uncle’s TV was Three’s Company show, no?” “Suzanne Somers.” Another big-boobed blonde with giant, shiny teeth. Wow. I’m nothing like her at all. “I dream about what can I do in the future for job.” “But you’ve enjoyed every job you’ve had so far, right? Being a florist and a landscaper and preparing food.” Da Vinci propped his head on his hand and looked at me eye to eye, just six inches from my face. I was afraid to breathe. “I do them and am good at them, but I get bored and ready for next challenge. Does this make sense? I’d rather do this.” I cleared my throat. By this, I was thinking he meant spend his days at wine festivals and not spend his days with me no matter what we are doing, but I was too embarrassed or shocked to ask him to clarify. “I don’t think lounging around in the sun pays much,” I teased.

Dating da Vinci 85 He took my hand and kissed the soft side of my wrist, a place I don’t recall ever being kissed by anyone. Then he moved up my arm, kissing it until he reached the velvety paper-thin skin on the inside of my elbow, perhaps the softest skin on the body, where I had never been kissed, either. Then he leaned in and kissed my lips, slowly, softly, again and again until the noise and the people had all stopped for us, or else I had put them on pause. When I pulled away, da Vinci smiled. “What? Is it okay?” I smiled back, the noise rushing back into our space. “Very, very okay.” Over a loudspeaker, a man made the announcement for the next wine tour so we joined our group. His notebook went back in his pocket, its contents still a mystery. We held hands and listened to the vintner talk about the wine, only I didn’t hear a word he said. I was listening for the smaller sounds that felt enormous—the sound of da Vinci’s laughter, the sound of our clothes rustling as we walked in unison, the sound of the grass crunching beneath our feet. And besides listening, I was enraptured by touch—da Vinci pulling me in closer to him, his arm around my waist, hip to hip, lingering behind the group, walking slowly, and when we reached the end of the row and they turned right, we turned left and slipped away, da Vinci pushing me against the vines, grapes like barrettes in my hair as he kissed me deeply, passionately. With each kiss I could feel myself coming back to life, my blood pumping through my veins, my heart beating fast, wild, my skin remembering how good it felt to be touched, to be wanted. My da Vinci was an explorer. His hands explored my body, he pulled me into him, and then he explored the warm territory of my back, the soft region of my breasts, and just when he headed south, I could see the group coming our way, so I stopped the exploration and we ran, hand in hand down the long row of vines to explore elsewhere. Together.

Chapter 8 Scrabble word: pursuit (22 points) FOR A LINGUIST, THERE is no better sport than Scrabble. Though doing the crossword had been a couples’ sport for Joel and me, Scrabble had always been a family sport. Joel had been very competitive, turning everything we did into a game. The boys loved it. Last one to the ice cream stand doesn’t get sprinkles! (Me.) First one to jump in the lake gets to dunk someone! (Me, dunked.) Even the neighborhood weekly basketball game had a prize. Losing team had to buy beer for the winning team on their guys’ night out at, yep, a sports bar. The sport didn’t matter: football, basketball, hockey, baseball. Joel’s last words were about winning. And sex. He had hooked his arm around my neck and whispered in my ear, “Winner gets the booty prize.” Of course I could never tell anyone this. I had attended only one grief group session at Life Church and vowed never to return. We went around the circle sharing what our loved ones last words had been; they had all been rather ordinary, like life: Honey, can you pick up some milk at the store? We’ve got dinner reservations at six. Have you seen my black socks? And my personal favorite: We’re out of hemorrhoid cream. But just because someone said “hemorrhoid cream” did not mean I would reveal my husband’s last words. Besides, some things should be kept private. It was the last thing that could only be shared with Joel and me. I had dissected his words a hundred times over. No matter which way I spliced it, how

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I might’ve wished he would’ve said “I love you” one last time, he was being Joel. He was a guy’s guy who loved having sex with his girl. I should be proud that after nearly ten years of marriage, he still wanted to have sex with me. And better yet, to consider it a “prize.” Still. There were times Joel’s competitive nature irked me, but his passionate pursuit for winning was his thing. Being number one was important to him. The kind of person who hangs his plaques and awards and news clippings on the wall where he can remind himself of his achievements and everyone else can see them, too. I felt inferior in this department, not that he did anything to make me feel this way. He preferred the spotlight while I lingered contentedly in the shadows. I was a watcher. He was a doer. In my humble opinion, the doer should never die. Putting that word, pursuit, on the Scrabble board was a small reminder that I could not give up. I had never been a chaser of dreams. But even a bookworm like me could pursue happiness, and if it so happened that eros came along with it, then so be it. In fact, I was currently playing footsie with da Vinci under the table. He was seated to my right and I had slipped off my fuzzy slippers and crept my toes inside the leg of his jeans. Da Vinci had responded by putting his hand on my knee and moving his thumb in small circles on my bone. I had no idea even that hard part of my body could have so much feeling. The boys played with us, William currently in the lead because I wasn’t at the top of my game. The footsie and the knee rubbing were distracting my mental capacity for word formation. Da Vinci was holding his own with four- and some five-letter English words. The boys loved to catch him misspelling something, though honestly I would’ve let him get by with it. I didn’t have to be his teacher all the time. Bradley hated Scrabble, yet he played with us because he was a joiner like his father. He didn’t want to be excluded. And he was better

Dating da Vinci 89 at the game than he realized. He thought of words I would never think to assimilate on my tile rack. Defense. Tackle. Touchdown. (That one was on the triple word score.) He collected medals and ribbons and trophies on his bedroom wall on a special shelf put up by his father. (Same for William, only different sorts of prizes.) I didn’t have a single medal, certificate, or plaque in my possession. I’m sure I received them. I got good grades, but my mother had never been one to boast, and while she probably had them tucked somewhere in a chest in the attic to give me before or after she died, we didn’t make a big deal out of winning. “It’s how you play the game,” she had told us a thousand times. We often unconsciously repeat the words our parents put in our mouths from our childhood, and when I said those words to our sons, Joel would shake his head, and add, “But it is important to do your best. There’s nothing wrong with winning.” So he was verbally sort of agreeing with me while physically disagreeing with me. I hated when he did that. If being an overachiever is a downfall, then I’ll take it. It was much better than so many spousal issues. He still made time for fun. If life was a game, then he played it very, very well. Monica had been just like him. Even in her glossy magazine article, I could tell she was still on the overachiever track. She was a partner in her law firm and had collected all the rewards of her pursuit of riches and fame. Happiness, I wasn’t so sure. Why else had she begun to pursue Joel again when she was married? My own journey meant our roads had to converge. I was building up the courage to confront her, but had not yet figured out a way that I wouldn’t sound like a total idiot. I began to understand the phrase, “bury the hatchet.” (An American English colloquialism meaning “to make peace.” Borrowed from the figurative or literal practice of putting away the tomahawk at the cessation of hostilities among or by Native Americans in the Eastern United States. Weapons were to be buried or otherwise cached in time of peace.)

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Still, I had to know. I would never achieve inner peace without it. People like Joel can think of an idea and have a plan formulated in a matter of minutes and then, as the Nike slogan goes, just do it. People like me have to dip their toe into the water first. We do our research. Cover our bases. And then, at a snail’s pace, proceed. Thus far, I have done the research. In my grief binder, I have written both the work and home phone numbers, e-mail addresses and physical addresses for Monica Blevins. I have pulled up her corporate web site and read and re-read her bio. I don’t know what I was hoping to find. It was a very bland, lawyer-type bio, packed full of the kind of achievements achievers like to add to such. The fourth time I read it I noticed something: a clue. Top 40 Under 40 class, three years ago, same as Joel. There had been a reception and Joel had asked me if I wanted to go, but I usually declined his corporate schmoozefests and besides, William and Bradley had pizza night at Cub Scouts. I’d take a greasy slice of pepperoni and rowdy kids to a boring business function any day. I tried to recall that night. I’d seen the plaque. He’d handed it to me when he got in that night. “It’s late,” I’d said. 10 p.m. Well, late for married people on a school night. Late I thought for a business reception. “How did it go?” “Fine,” he’d said. “Nothing special.” “Nice plaque. It’s even got your name engraved on it.” “I’ll live in infamy,” he’d joked as he planted the kiss in the middle of my forehead. “Smells like you had wine.” “You’ve got a nose like a bloodhound.” “And perfume.” Our eyes had locked. “You must stop hugging all the ladies, darling.” I’d been joking. He had laughed. I was never very good at jokes. Joel and Bradley were the good jokesters in the family and William could hold his own where sarcasm was concerned, but Joel had only

Dating da Vinci 91 retreated to the bathroom to brush the wine from his teeth and toss the perfume-scented clothes in the hamper. I hadn’t thought it had been anything other than my husband’s proclivity to hug his associates—yes, guys, too. It wasn’t very PC (you are supposed to do “side hugs” in the office), but still. It was two weeks after that Joel mentioned he was up for a bid on a new big law firm project. I had been finishing the crossword puzzle. (Joel got it first, answered the ones he knew—typically sports- and business-related items—and then I finished it off, usually two-thirds, not that I’m boasting.) “Oh, yeah. Which one? Don’t tell me, it has a bunch of people’s last names in it. Like Swarovski, William-Sonoma, Crate & Barrel. Right?” “Close. Stevens Blevins Polanski.” “Like Roman Polanski.” I was always looking for ways to link words, make them familiar to me, place them in the Rolodex of my mind. But the name Blevins had not rung a bell until much later. A month later, Joel’s firm had been awarded the project, and he had been busy in his studio drawing up the designs. “My best work yet,” he said, same as he did with every new project. I recalled breakfast meetings and lunch meetings and even a couple of late-night dinner meetings. This was not altogether uncommon for big projects when the decision makers couldn’t carve the time into their day to meet with the architects, so they got creative and involved food. Even so, there were a few more of those meetings than was typical. But when I found out which partner he was meeting with, who was leading the project and sharing breakfast, lunch, and dinner with my husband, I went ballistic. Monica Blevins. Beautiful, my-first-love, ex-fiancée Monica Blevins. Married, but still. Come on. Then came the fights. You don’t trust me. How can you possibly think I’d cheat on you with her after what she did to me? Did you know how much I loved her? How hard it was for me to love again after what happened? Do you know how humiliating it was to tell our family and

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friends there would be no wedding after everything they’d invested? How many friendships were ruined because they had to pick sides? Come on, Ramona. Please. Have some faith. But I hadn’t. I couldn’t. My mind raced with the words I thought could ruin us. But it wasn’t the hint of adultery that nearly ruined us—it was the crumbling of the faith that could have led to our demise. In fact, I think the more that I obsessed over it, the more he probably considered having an affair. I had demanded too much. What did you talk about? What’s her husband like? Are they happily married? Did you talk about me? About the kids? Do you still have feelings for her? On and on, I’d gone like an idiot missing a shut-off switch. With each question, I had dug us deeper into a hole. For Joel, faith was never an issue. He believed in me, in us. He believed in God and believed he would go to Heaven. He believed you could forgive and be friends with someone who broke your heart. I didn’t. I believed eros could never fully be erased from one’s memory—its magical dust so tiny on the soul, it could never be cleansed. He didn’t have to tell me he still loved her. I knew deep in my bones. He had done what good husbands do and gave the project—his blood, sweat, and tears and drawings—to another partner and said, “Fine. If you can’t be mature about this, then I won’t see her again.” And he died two weeks later. FFF

Da Vinci and I hadn’t found a moment to be alone together again the entire week after the wine festival. Though we had made out like teenagers in the front seat of my black station wagon in the field parking lot at the festival, I wasn’t about to have sex with him in my car. Not even the darkest tinted windows (if I had them) could make me give in to desire. But almost. Especially after he whispered, “Ti desidero.” I want you. And I so badly wanted to be wanted. No, I needed to be wanted. But it had to be the right time.

Dating da Vinci 93 And in the car was not it. If I was going to give up my second virginity, it had to be special. This, too, became my pursuit, though not a “write it down on paper, put it in a grief binder” kind of pursuit. The pursuit was within, the prick of desire that wouldn’t go away, the wheels of our ultimate union were already in motion—the eyes, the flirting, the touching, the kissing—it all led down one road. If. If I let it happen. If I gave in to him, though my mind was telling me it might not be a good idea. Because he was my student. Because it was too soon. Because I was afraid what might happen if I did. Remember, me not being the “just do it” type, also applied to just doing it. Everything in time. But soon. Scheduling time for things like amore is difficult enough for married people, but nearly impossible for widows with two busy kids, a nosy mother and a needy sister. Zoe had another something Rachel wanted us to attend. Not sure if it was a recital (modern dance, jazz, ballet, singing), a play (where Rachel fought for the lead role each time) or a beauty pageant, but nonetheless, we were expected to be there for every single one of them. (Not that she returned the attention by going to my boys’ events, because though she’d “love to,” the mini-celeb, rising star herself was just “too busy.”) Da Vinci asked to come along, and my first instinct was that it was a very bad idea. I didn’t want my family thinking there was anything going on with da Vinci, and it might look peculiar to have him tagging along to a family event. But he was lonely. And he loved children, saying often how much he missed his big family back in Italy. I worried that the kids liked him too much now, that da Vinci would move on from us and they would lose another male figure. Protecting my children from future heartbreak was more important than my own. Yet I acquiesced—it was only an innocent play, I told myself— and we headed out to the production called Four Seasons, put on by the creative independent school Zoe attended. Zoe missed way too

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much school to go to public school, and because Rachel deemed the arts and individual expression the highest standard for an education, Zoe ended up at the Austin Creative Academy where parents hoped for future Mozarts or Dickenses or … well, da Vincis. It also happened to be where the A.D.D. kids who failed in a more regimented environment got stuck, so it was an interesting mix, to say the least. We arrived late as usual—Bradley couldn’t find his lucky socks and William couldn’t find his light jacket and da Vinci had to shower in my bathroom because a pipe had busted in the studio. I know what you’re thinking. Did I get a sneak peek at da Vinci in the shower to see if reality matched up to my fantasy? Yes. And no. While I was busy shoveling through my kids’ drawers and closets to find their missing items, I remembered that some of Bradley’s clean clothes had gotten mixed in with my clothes by mistake. I’d seen them in my closet, which is of course off my bathroom where da Vinci was showering. I opened the door, the steam from the shower rushing out, and slipped into my closet. As I passed by the shower with the clear plexiglass stall, I could see the frame of a naked man and all I could think was that I couldn’t believe there was any naked man in my shower, let alone a man like da Vinci. I tried to be quiet, but my closet door squeaked and da Vinci hollered out. “Is that you, Mona Lisa?” And I could feel my whole body tingle from the toes up and answered. “I’m sorry. I’m looking for Bradley’s sock.” Da Vinci hollered back. “You’ve been keeping secret from me, Mona Lisa.” “Oh, yeah? What’s that?” “Your shower is much better than studio shower. Not complaint, though. Only truth. No fix other shower, and I shower with you.” He didn’t laugh, but with his broken English, I couldn’t always tell when he was kidding. I couldn’t see his face. Until I turned, missing sock in hand, and saw da Vinci peek his head out from the shower

Dating da Vinci 95 door. With a big smile on his face. I saw six inches of his naked body from top down, but only the left side. “It’s warm in here. Come and join me. I’ll wash your hair.” If we didn’t have to be at the auditorium in ten minutes and if we were alone in the house, I would’ve leapt into the shower as if my feet were on fire. If my heart were beating any faster, I was sure it would explode. Still, eros would have to wait. “I’ll take a raincheck,” I said, which da Vinci didn’t understand. “That means next time.” He closed the door again and started singing in Italian. I don’t know what it was, but I could’ve listened to it all night long. “Whatever,” da Vinci said, which he had picked up from Bradley, only da Vinci didn’t infuse the same sarcasm. Now all I could think about was how badly I needed a shower. My father hates to be late, and nearly all of my childhood memories involve my dad standing with his elbow in the air, his right eyebrow cocked, staring at his watch as if the house would explode if we didn’t get out by the time the minute hand hit whatever magical number he had in mind for us to leave. In all other regards, my father was an easygoing dad: fair, caring, and noble. Yes, like his name. Noble: from Latin, (g)nobilis, “noted, highborn” from the IndoEuropean root, gno. My father revered education, was a better Scrabble player than I am, and while other dads in my neighborhood hosted poker night, my dad preferred Trivial Pursuit. No one would dare call my dad a nerd. If so, he was a handsome nerd. Or at least I’d give him “distinguished looking.” Yes, like his name. He was easy to get along with because he knew enough about any given topic to keep a conversation going and tell you something you didn’t know about your favorite topic. I loved that about him. He had also filled my head with many useless facts over the years, which I was surprised to have come back to help me years later. He taught me about anagrams, a word formed by rearranging all the letters of another word, when I

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was six. It was my favorite car game and before I knew it, everywhere I went I was forming anagrams. It became our “thing.” “Cinema,” Dad would say as we were in line for a movie. “Iceman,” I would quickly answer. “Good girl,” he would say and pat my head. No wonder I was getting a PhD in linguistics. I’d been trained like Pavlov’s dog. My love for words grew from there—my pastime looking for root words and keeping a dictionary in my backpack (and later purse) to satiate my thirst whenever I encountered a word I didn’t know. Then a notebook much like da Vinci’s, though I still didn’t know what was in his. Mine was full of words. I had pages of words I loved like: butter crème de la crème avant garde muse monkey poignant And words that made me cringe: asparagus prison death And even words that weren’t even real words, but ones I thought should exist like “mind-drift” and “love coma.” I tried these words (and many others) out over the years, but so far, none of them had caught on. I would have to get them in a Steven Spielberg movie or on MTV to accomplish adding a new popular phrase into the dictionary. Noble was checking his watch in the dark (yes, it had a light in it, of course) when we arrived. Even in the near dark of the theater, his look spoke volumes. And he sighed as if to say, “Oh, Ramona, still late at thirty-six years of age.” Two boys had not improved my proclivity for tardiness. Another word I love: proclivity.

Dating da Vinci 97 He kissed me on the cheek, my mother hugged the boys and me, and Rachel was nowhere to be found—probably backstage being a stage mom. My father said, “Ramona, this is Dr. Cortland Andrews,” and my stomach dropped. I had no idea. What a silly thing for my body to do, just from the mention of someone’s name. I squinted and sure enough, Cortland was sitting next to my father, with three empty seats to his left. The boys sat next to my mother, and I introduced da Vinci to my father. My mother was busy mothering da Vinci: how was he liking America, is Ramona feeding you enough, can I come do your laundry. Good. They just thought I was being nice to him. His patron, no more, no less. They wouldn’t in a million years believe da Vinci had just propositioned me in the bathroom. I perspired just thinking about it. “Good to see you,” Cortland said as I scooted past him to sit down. Cortland and da Vinci shook hands, though da Vinci told me the night of Panchal’s wedding that he didn’t like Cortland. Or more specifically, did not like the way he looked at me or danced with me. He’d been jealous. Silly, really. I started to sit two seats over from Cortland to leave room for Rachel, but Cortland said, “She won’t come back. She asks me to come to these things, and I never see her until after they’re over with.” He patted the empty seat with his hand, so I obliged and sat next to him. Da Vinci sat on my left. The last time I was sandwiched by two handsome guys? You guessed it: never. “How are you?” I asked Cortland, our shoulders rubbing together as I sat down. He straightened in his seat. “Hey, I’m glad you came. I have a word for you.” My father used to do this. Try to stump me. I’d gone through dozens of calendars and books on vocabulary, e-mail words of the day, and the thickest dictionaries on the planet trying to keep up. “Hit me.” “Abaction.” “Good one. But we are in Texas, cattle country. It means cattle-stealing.”

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Cortland frowned. “Okay. Devoir.” “As in, ‘It is your devoir to win this spelling bee, Ramona.’ Courtesy, my dad before my fourth-grade regional championship.” “And did you do your duty and win?” “Second place, and don’t rub it in.” “I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but I was Texas spelling bee champion in 1972. Sixth grade.” “Fine. I’m a little jealous. I lost sixth grade to Morton Fitz.” “With a name like Morton Fitz, how could he lose?” The lights went off, abruptly ending our conversation. Only our third meeting and I could see why my dad and sister both liked Cortland. Skilled conversationalist, never at a loss for words. Unlike me, who had so many words to choose from I often gave up and remained silent. Cortland knew I liked words, so that’s where he started with me. Charming, really. But devoir? Come on. Amateur. The curtain raised and within a minute, da Vinci held my hand. I could feel my heart quicken as I decided whether or not to let him hold it (which my heart wanted him to do) or to slip it out (which I felt I had to do to save an explanation to my parents). The second option would no doubt hurt da Vinci’s feelings, and I really did want the raincheck on the shower and whatever else may come. Why did I care what my parents thought? Hadn’t my mother just the week prior said how glad she was I have some company? That I didn’t seem quite so lonely anymore? Maybe she didn’t think I would have that kind of a relationship with da Vinci. But still. I squeezed da Vinci’s hand and then got up, telling him I needed to go to the restroom. I made my way to the back of the theater where I watched my darling niece stumble over her lines, trip across the stage and keep a plastered grin on her face for a solid hour. My knees were weak from standing, but I didn’t return to my seat until the final number and then I put my hands in my jacket pocket and shivered as if I were cold in the theater.

Dating da Vinci 99 When Rachel and the tiny starlet joined us in the aisle, Rachel hugged Cortland and kissed him on the lips, right in front of my parents. I’d always felt funny about public displays of affection, even after Joel and I had been married for years. “Hey, you,” she said to him in a flirty voice full of sex appeal. Their language of love was out in full view for the world to see. They were an open book. They were having sex and lots of it. Only later in the bathroom she’d told me I was wrong. No sex yet. “Believe me, I’ve practically thrown myself on him, but I can’t believe he’s the wait-until-marriage type, even if he is a good Christian man,” she gushed as she reapplied lip gloss, then tilted her head as if to reconsider. “A few more dates I’m sure he’ll give in. How can he resist this?” “How indeed,” I said, my throat catching. Maybe I was feeling a little jealous, and though my sister had enjoyed a spirited sex life since her divorce, this one got to me. I didn’t want her to kiss Cortland, let alone have sex with him. He was the only guy she’d ever dated after Michael that I liked. Not like liked, just liked in the general humankind sort of way. “What about you? Knocking boots with Leo yet?” I brushed through my hair, trying not to compare it to my sister’s. It wasn’t fair that I’d just spent $125 on a color job that I couldn’t afford in the first place and hers still looked shinier and bouncier. “Don’t be silly.” “I’m not being silly. I’m being hopeful. For you. If I weren’t with Cortland, I’d be in hot pursuit. You’re just not interested, huh?” “Actually, he has kissed me. I mean we’ve kissed. At a wine festival.” Rachel’s wide mouth opened even wider and emitted a squeal of delight. “OhmygodI’msohappyforyou. Is he a great kisser? I always imagined Italians would be the best kissers.” “Very much so. He’s young, though. I think kissing improves with age.”

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“Poo. It’s when they’re young and hot and full of reckless abandon that it’s good. I bet sleeping with him will be …” She rolled her eyes into the back of her head. “OhmygodIcan’tbelieveI’mjealousofyou.” I swelled with pride. Of course I shouldn’t have to keep da Vinci a secret. I was a grown woman. I could make my own decisions about my love life. About getting one, that is. I’d just have to deal with the teacher issue and figure out how to break the news to Judith without breaking her heart, and then we were fair game. Not that I’d let my sister’s jealousy speed along any decision. “There you are,” Cortland said as I exited the bathroom, and for a split second I thought he’d been waiting for me until I saw that my sister was directly behind me. Cortland locked eyes with me, one, two, three, then focused on my sister, who put her arm around his waist and led him away from me. My boys were still at the table, talking football. My boys: William, Bradley, and da Vinci. When I approached, they all three looked up at me with adoration. Not as adorably as when my boys were little and they shouted “Momma!” every time I entered the room, but for growing boys and one young man, I felt very lucky. Especially when da Vinci leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Usciamo di qui.” Let’s get out of here.

Chapter 9 Anagrams: Leonardo da Vinci FOR SOMEONE OF QUESTIONABLE faith, I looked for signs only where I’d felt comfortable: within words. I thought it meant something that Cortland named his dog “love.” I thought it meant something that my da Vinci had been named after that da Vinci and that Mona Lisa was a derivative of my full name. Even though I couldn’t explain it, I knew that in this time and this space Mona Lisa (me) and da Vinci (him) meant something together though. To figure it out, I searched for meaning within his name, playing the anagram game that had become second nature to me. There were plenty of messages to be found within Leonardo da Vinci: A candid lore vino. The “lore” of our names. A candid role vino. The “role vino” had played in our courtship at the wine festival. A candid rove loin. Having a roving loin could be a bad thing, but as long as it was roving in my direction, I took it as a good sign. Which led me to: A candid lover ion. It couldn’t be helped. We couldn’t be helped. It was right there: da Vinci and Mona Lisa’s union. Love matter. Right there in his name. All along. As Anh helped me rake leaves the following day (the thing about leaves is, they keep falling until the last leaf is gone. The trees were

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now bare, which meant we were only two weeks from Joel’s death date), I confessed to Anh my intentions. I’m not sure if I wanted her to give me a high-five or a stern, shake-her-finger-at-me type of warning or do a cartwheel. Instead, she stared at me blankly for a few seconds, which felt more like an hour. Then she threw her rake down and wrapped her skinny arms around me. “Good for you, Rames.” Her hug also felt like it lasted an hour. When she let go, she had tears in her eyes. “Oh, dear. Why are you crying?” “Because I’m so happy for you. Because I can tell how much happier you’ve been lately and if he’s the reason for it, then I say, more amore!” “Well, I got him transferred into another class. I’m no longer his teacher, though I am still a teacher. Fortunately Panchal met his own wife at the cultural center, so he can’t exactly throw stones.” Anh shrugged. “You’re both adults and it’s not a public university. Besides, sometimes you can’t help how you meet who you meet, you know?” “And besides, it’s not like we would be going anywhere relationshipwise. It would just be for companionship.” “And great sex.” I tossed my rake onto the ground. This is why I had to tell Anh. I wasn’t looking for consensus or approval. I was looking for a sex pep talk. “I don’t think I can go through with it. I’m scared. And don’t you dare tell me it’s like riding a bike.” Anh put her hands on her hips. “No. It’s a helluva lot more fun than getting back on a bike again. And take it from me, someone who’s had more sexual partners than should probably be openly admitted and three of them very different husbands in the sack; the fundamentals are the same from guy to guy.” “Uh, yeah. I don’t need a diagram. Tab A goes into Slot B, repeat as necessary, thankyouverymuch.”

Dating da Vinci 103 “What I mean is, once things get going, it kind of takes care of itself. The body almost goes into autopilot. Only some autopilots are a lot sexier than others.” “Well, it did feel like if I hadn’t stopped things at the wine festival or in the car that I could’ve gone through with it. If only …” “ … you didn’t feel guilty about Joel.” “Exactly.” “Well, if Heaven weren’t already as great as having sex every minute of the day, then he would be doing it, too. I once read orgasm is the closest thing we experience on earth to the feeling we’ll have to the perfect bliss we’ll feel in Heaven.” “But you don’t believe in Heaven. You believe in reincarnation.” “It doesn’t matter what I believe; it matters what you believe. And you believe in Heaven, and I do believe in bliss, so go for it.” “A little piece of Heaven might be nice.” “Or a lot of it. A whole lot of bliss.” Bliss: a word missing from my personal vocabulary. What would it be like to have it back in my dictionary? To actually feel it? “What about you? Gone blissing lately? You haven’t shared, which means you either haven’t or you’re keeping secrets.” Anh shrugged her shoulders. “I swore I wouldn’t tell you.” “This can’t be good. Maybe I don’t wanna know.” “I had a thing the other night …” “Great. You’re telling me anyway. Fine, you had a mover/shaker thing?” “Exactly. And who was there, but Michael.” “As in my ex-brother-in-law Michael?” “Mr. Republican Himself. So we have a few drinks. You know how vodka tonics do me.” “No. Don’t even say it.” I threw down the rake and covered my ears. “You slept with Michael and now neither of you are going to go to the boys’ games with me, and it’ll be all awkward and weird, and oh, Jesus, Anh, couldn’t you stick to a safe glass of Chardonnay?”

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“I’d had a very bad day. My stock dropped.” “And that makes you sleep with people you don’t like?” “No, it makes me drink vodka tonics with extra lime. And sometimes it leads to sleeping with someone I don’t like. But it’s not that I dislike Michael as a person. He’s a good-looking enough man.” “Who fundamentally disagrees with everything you stand for.” “Well, he has bought stock in my company, so he can’t be all bad, political, social and spiritual views aside.” “What other view is there?” “The strictly physical view. Nice smile. Nice body. Nice voice. Nice hands.” “I’ve never noticed his hands.” “That’s because they haven’t been all over your body.” I cringed. “Ewww. Okay. I still think of him as a brother, so you can leave the deets out of your conquest this time.” “He’s an amazing lover. Quite aggressive.” “Must be why he and Rachel stayed married so long. So what does this mean? You’re not going to start dating him, are you?” “I can’t imagine what we’d possibly do other than what we’ve already done, which is fine by me. There are four basic human needs. Do you know what they are?” “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me sex is one of them.” “Food, drink, sleep, and sex. And not exactly in that order, either. I’ll admit Michael wasn’t my first choice, though. I had a drink with Cortland before he had to jaunt off to some play of Zoe’s.” “Ohmigod. You’re the reason Michael was late to Zoe’s play?” “He made it in time for the third act, didn’t he? Besides, I think our first two acts were far more interesting.” I shook my head. “No wonder he was in such a good mood when he arrived.” Anh smiled proudly. “Michael was in a good mood? Of course he was in a good mood, what am I saying? And now that I think

Dating da Vinci 105 about it, all Cortland did was ask questions about you before he took off.” I straightened my shoulders. “He did? What sort of questions?” “About you and da Vinci, for one thing. If you’ve dated since you lost Joel, how it happened, how you’re coping with the boys. He didn’t mention your sister once.” “He just wants to get to know her family better is all. I think she might be getting serious about him. They’re all coming here for dinner on Sunday. It’s Dad’s birthday and I get birthday duty.” We bagged up the leaves, and I tried to get Cortland out of my mind. I don’t know why I was looking forward to seeing him again. So my sister was dating a nice, sweet, funny guy who asks about me. Big deal. Anh placed the bags in the trashcan and we went inside. My neighborhood coffee was in thirty minutes, just enough time to shower and put on the coffee and rolls. “Here’s the number you asked for,” Anh said, handing me a business card. The chakra specialist. I couldn’t believe I was going to see a yogi. “You’ll thank me later. I can’t wait to see what the new and improved Ramona looks like. Scratch that. What she feels like.” After Anh left, I peeled off my clothes and stepped into the shower and began humming a favorite song of Joel and mine: Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You, Babe.” Sometimes I thought the shower hitting my scalp was like pushing the on button on the stereo in my mind. I only sang Sonny and Cher in the shower, and even then, I sang badly but with fervor. When I paused to grab the shampoo, the song went on without me. Through the shower glass, I saw a frame, da Vinci’s frame, as he peeled off his shirt and hummed the song I didn’t even know he knew. “Is okay to shower now, Mona Lisa?” he asked. I instinctively covered my body parts, which was ridiculous since he obviously meant to get in with me. The very naked me. I sucked in my stomach, stuck out my chest and smoothed my hair back. “Come on in, da Vinci.”

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When is a shower more than a shower? When you share it with someone else. Especially a someone with a hard, wet body pressed up against yours, thigh to thigh, chest to chest, arms wrapped around each other’s slick, soapy bodies. And then? Lips on lips. Lips on collar bone. Lips on breast, stomach, thighs. Anh was right. Enlightenment can come from the simplest things. We hadn’t even gotten to actual sex yet, and I was feeling the out of body experience that came with the transition from becoming to being. I wasn’t thinking of anything while we were in the shower, mind you. It was better than getting back on a bike, one thing leading to another and I would have most certainly let nature take its course if it hadn’t been for Zoya and Gabriella both calling my name in their thick accents beyond my bedroom door. “Ramona, we’re here.” “Shit.” “No stop,” da Vinci said as he continued to kiss me. I began to panic. “Didn’t you hear that? My neighbors are here. I can’t believe we’ve been in here thirty minutes already.” “Just five more minutes,” da Vinci said, and as much as I would’ve liked to have gone through with it, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it knowing my neighbors could walk in on us any minute. They had no idea I had company. Why would they? “Here’s the plan. I go out first. You wait five minutes, get dressed. Fully dressed, da Vinci. And walk out the front door and around to the studio. Okay?” Da Vinci scrunched his brow but said okay. “But shower nice, no?” I kissed him one last time, hard on the lips. “Yes. Shower very nice.” Gabriella, Zoya, and Simone were already eating cinnamon rolls they had heated themselves when I joined them. Zoya was complaining, her hands flying everywhere as she spoke. “I’m tired of baby-trying,” she said. “Used to sex two times a week. Now sex every night. Zoya don’t need baby that bad.”

Dating da Vinci 107 Gabriella, who had five children, reassured her. “Just get pregnant, and you’ll get sex much less often. He’ll be afraid to hurt the baby and after baby comes, you’ll get sex hardly ever.” “Really?” Zoya’s eyes widened. “Then maybe baby now good thing.” We laughed, but my neighbors stopped laughing, Simone’s eyes like saucers, when da Vinci, wearing only a yellow towel that barely closed, walked through the kitchen, his hair still dripping wet. “Da Vinci!” I yelled, wishing I had a dishcloth big enough to cover his whole body. What part of get dressed and go through the front door did he not understand? I swear. Sometimes he says okay when he has no idea what I’m saying. “¡Dios Santo! ” Gabriella gasped in Spanish. Sweet Lord in Heaven. “Pelo amor de Devs! ” Simone whispered in Portugese. Heaven help us. “Glückliches weibchen,” Zoya said in German. “Zoya!” I scolded. She’d called me a lucky bitch. “Ladies,” da Vinci said, walking casually over to me where he planted a kiss on my temple. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out we both had wet hair and had come out of the bathroom within minutes of each other. And the kiss said more than any explanation could. “Good morning.” He proceeded to pour himself a cup of coffee while we all stared at him. What could I do? “Good morning, indeed,” said Gabriella. Simone slit her eyes. “You didn’t tell us you’d already had breakfast, Ramona.” “The shower in the studio is broken,” I told them nonchalantly. “I’ll have Jesús fix it,” Gabriella said, then raised a brow. “Or perhaps not so fast?” We smiled, the chemistry in the room thick with surprise, our eyes all on da Vinci’s back where drops of water glistened on his shoulders. “Schlechtes Mädchen,” Zoya said as she wagged her finger at me. Bad girl. Being bad had never felt so good.

Chapter 10 I’D NEARLY CONVINCED MYSELF the shower scene was an anomaly, an erratic blimp in an otherwise normal platonic relationship, yet for the life of me, I couldn’t get it—or him—out of my head. The cursor blinked on the screen, beckoning me to conjure the words, to fill the white space in the quiet hours meant for my dissertation. My outline clearly demanded I write about the history of love letters, but contrarily I’d spent the morning reading the most romantic love letters the world has ever seen and fantasizing about finishing what da Vinci had started. I, the lover of words, did not wish to write. I only wished to do. Whether I would actually go through with it if and when the time ever came would be a great surprise, like opening a forbidden sex box. I could daydream for hours about the package itself, let alone what I might find inside. Doing would not be possible for the foreseeable future. Though not nearly as tragic as the love letters written by authors separated by war, da Vinci and I could not pursue our mutual attraction because he was a student first, a worker second, and a lover third. It had been so long since I’d been kissed or whiled away the morning daydreaming about sex that I didn’t even care if I came in third place. Because the real thing wouldn’t be home from work until midnight, I spent the rest of the morning researching love in the Renaissance and what secrets I might find in the original da Vinci’s past. Anh had dropped off several da Vinci books from her own collection. I had never

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paid any attention to the origin of da Vinci’s works, or wondered about his subjects, until my da Vinci began calling me his Mona Lisa. The Renaissance, a time of rebirth between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, was marked by reflection and resurgence, improvement and perfection. Da Vinci’s insatiable curiosity about how the world and everything in it worked gave birth not only to brilliant art, but brilliant ideas. Much like my young Leo, old Leo seemed thrilled to be alive, to make new discoveries in the everyday. Could the scholars be right? Did Leonardo invest in his studies the passion usually reserved for a lover? Out of thousands of pages of notes, not one doodle hinted of a personal affection. Even back then, surely you couldn’t resist writing your lover’s name just once. Or initials with a heart around it. But maybe that’s just me. Maybe Leonardo was in love with life and that was enough for him. Could it be enough for me? I stared at the picture of a painting of Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan and da Vinci’s patron for several years, who commissioned da Vinci to paint the Last Supper. Why did I find the fact that da Vinci orchestrated Ludovico and Beatrice’s wedding celebration far more interesting than a great work of art? Da Vinci: Renaissance Man, Wedding Planner. On the next full page, I studied my favorite da Vinci portrait, The Lady and the Ermine. Da Vinci was known for using symbolism in his work, and the ermine—the white, short-tailed weasel known for its hatred of dirt—symbolized purity. With mounting disappointment, I read that the “lady” was no lady at all, but Cecelia Gallerani, the favored mistress of the Duke of Milan, and had in fact given birth to the Duke’s first son the same year as his and Beatrice’s wedding. Was da Vinci a natural jokester, or was it simply so accepted that every husband keep a mistress on the side that no one caught the irony of the ermine in the mistress’ lap? At least the ermine was a weasel, and—also fitting—a carnivore.

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Poor Beatrice. Four hundred years between us, and I know how you must’ve felt. As Ludovico lay in your bed, did you not wonder if he was thinking of her? I know. Sharing his heart was far harder than sharing his body, was it not? I imagined da Vinci painting a portrait of Monica Blevins wearing a shimmery red gown, her dark hair flowing down onto her full bosom, her eyes full of mischief, a fox resting on her lap. A sly, conniving fox, plain and simple. I didn’t care for irony. If Monica was in fact a mistress, no use in being cunning about it. I slammed the book closed, cursing myself that I’d let my pleasant daydreams turn dark at the thought of Monica. I needed some inspiration, both in the form of a second cup of coffee and a visit to my personal collection of love letters. So Joel couldn’t compete with the romantic Robert Browning—I was no Elizabeth Barrett Browning, either. Joel was not a writer. He was not eloquent so much as straightforward, yet his words, in his own handwriting, as opposed to the e-mails our generation is so accustomed to, brought me comfort. I hurried to my closet, where inside a plastic teddy bear container that once housed animal crackers (yes, Joel loved them with peanut butter), now resided ten years’ worth of cards and notes. Unfortunately, ten years only amounted to a jar half full. Or half empty. Whichever way you choose to look at it. This is what remains of our love: 1. William and Bradley 2. Approximately four hundred photographs, a third of them digital, stored on discs. I’d meant to get them printed for two years, but I wasn’t the scrapbooking type. I’d read an article that you need to print off at least one set because of how quickly technology changes. I made a mental note to do this before his Death Day. 3. One VHS tape, ten mini Hi-8 tapes, and two DVDs of home movies (which I have placed in a fireproof safe).

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Rachel had offered to have her production team transfer the old tapes to DVD, too, yet I thought watching us from the early days would be painful. I took out the tapes and set them on the dresser to give to Rachel on Sunday. I unscrewed the bright blue lid, slid down the wall and scooped out the contents like a bear with a jar of honey. One glimpse of his signature was all it took. I hadn’t even read the sappy ones (two-third of Joel’s cards were humorous, one-third sweet and romantic, probably due to not finding any funny ones he liked on the card aisle that day). His words: authentically Joel. I read the cards, laughed, cried, and lingered where it mattered most, his own words inked onto the cardstock. Your bed warmer, J To many more years of S&S (S&S was code for Sex and Snuggling, two of his favorite things besides peanut butter and basketball) My lovely Thanks for putting up with me And his last cards for Valentine’s Day, my birthday, and our anniversary: Score one for Cupid You get prettier with age This card isn’t big enough for the love I have for you. A salty tear fell on the “love” and I caught my breath, afraid the ink would smear, but it merely magnified the word. Of course he loved me. How had I believed that I was the runner-up? I knew I had to get it over with. The day before, I had called Monica Blevins at work, prepared to set up a quick meet-and-greet over coffee. After all, asking a woman if she’d had a sexual affair with your husband over the phone would never do. It had to be done with grace and aplomb (n., self-confidence or assurance). I was afraid that over the phone I would choke and no words would come at all.

Dating da Vinci 113 Her number rang the requisite five times before her voice mail picked up. I was at once relieved she did not pick up and say hello, because my own voice had done as I had feared and been constricted by a muscle spasm in my vocal chords. I listened to her voice. Lovely, really. In one of my doctoral classes, we had studied voice. Did you know that most people can accurately determine one’s physical properties from one’s voice? As beauty is based on one’s symmetry, so too can one have a symmetrical voice. Monica Blevins’ voice was bold yet beautiful. From her voice alone you could imagine her speaking in front of a jury or making an acceptance speech on stage or whispering sweet nothings into an equally beautiful suitor’s ear. I imagined her with Joel. This is why my throat constricted. Her message said it all: I can’t take your call right now, and I wondered if she could take my call ever. If by confronting whatever it was that happened with my husband would be as painful to her as it would be for me. I didn’t leave a message. I did what most cowards do and hung up and went to Plan B: e-mail. I wondered if my e-mail would go in her spam folder, until I remembered that Joel and I had shared a home email address. She would recognize the last name (had he e-mailed her from our home account?). I had searched the history, mind you, and had not found any, but then my husband was meticulous about keeping his Inbox and Sent box clean. I was the packrat who kept e-mails long after they lost their purpose. If he had e-mailed Monica from our home account, he had efficiently deleted its record. In my grief book, I ran my finger over her e-mail address, as if I didn’t have it etched in my mind like writing on a tombstone. My fingers trembled as I typed in her address in the “To” box. Subject line: re: you and Joel Griffen. Backspace. Too specific. Re: your past. Delete. Too mysterious. Re: a question. Too vague.

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I tried again: Can we meet for coffee? Yes, this would do. Nonthreatening, the message right there in the subject line, meaning I wouldn’t have to say much in the text box. Monica, As you may be aware, the anniversary of Joel’s death is approaching and while this time is very hard for me, it is made even more difficult by some unanswered questions I have about his life. I was hoping that you might help me with this. Can we meet for coffee in the next few days? Yours, Ramona Then wondering if she would know who Ramona was, or simply to be possessive, I signed it: Ramona Griffen. The cursor blinked over the “Send” button. How simple an act just to press my finger down and have it be done with, sent through the cable lines that would cause my message to appear to her within seconds. But I didn’t. Instead, I hit “Draft,” which would save it for later. I couldn’t believe how weak I felt, how powerless, not even mustering the courage to send an e-mail, but the truth was as much I wanted to know the facts, I didn’t want to know at all. The same reason that kept me from approaching her at the funeral or reaching her during the last two years remained to this day: knowing would end whatever hope I hung onto that Joel had been faithful to me. That he loved only me. I turned off the computer, realizing I was already late to meet with the yogi. As I let myself feel the heaviness in my heart that I used to believe was sadness, I reconsidered based on Deacon Friar’s advice. I changed my mind—it was full of love. If my heart felt like a hundred-pound sack of potatoes in my chest, I would imagine its weight was that of the love that all those eloquent writers spoke of.

Dating da Vinci 115 It worked, though my mind felt heavy with anxiety over Monica. What if the seven wheels of energy could heal that and everything else that seemed out of sync with my life? It was worth a shot. Chakra: a Sankrit word meaning wheel, or vortex, referring to each of the seven energy centers of which our consciousness, our energy system, is comprised. If the soul is energy, the mind energy and the universe energy, I had to believe there was some truth in this practice. How else had it survived thousands of years? Just as the deacon had looked nothing like I’d pictured (because I hadn’t spoken to him on the phone), neither did the yogi. The yogi did not look like Gandhi or a Buddhist at all, but rather like a soccer mom from my school. Someone my age had this whole mind/body connection figured out and had young kids in school? In fact, she had four kids and one husband who had left her for someone younger, so I had to believe she could’ve been on par with my life in the stress department. Her studio looked like any other gym: blue mats rolled up on the left, large mirror in the middle and stereo equipment to the left. This is the room where I would find enlightenment? It seemed like a bubble bath with candles and aromatherapy would make more sense. I nearly turned around and walked out. I didn’t know this woman from Adam. Was I supposed to reveal something to her? Share my deepest secrets? Tell her about Joel and Monica and da Vinci? My stomach (which I learned was a part of the solar plexus chakra) was in knots. If my sister was the Energizer Bunny of the Workout World, then Cynthia Sheffield was the Cool Housecat who owned her domain without a word at all. She was tall and pretty and lean, with catshaped green eyes and long black hair. Gray hairs wove through her otherwise Crystal Gayle-looking hair. Wow. She must really have inner peace to allow her hair to show her age. Without the gray, I would’ve taken her for twenty-five, but I added fifteen years once I saw the silver streaks and the fine lines.

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We sat cross-legged on a mat with soft mystical music playing from the stereo. She spoke softly, explaining the seven chakras and their purpose. We discussed the goal of “flow,” with no roadblocks within our consciousness. I was a wonderful student, listening intently, asking questions when permissible. I thought I got it—like a biology class, each section matching up like the skeletal system or the organs. I was doing fine right up until she explained the figurative representations of the chakras. “They aren’t physical,” she said, “but problems in the chakra can have physical repercussions.” She talked of ego and personality and inner light. It turned out I had multiple roadblocks. If a speedway represented flow, then I wasn’t even a quiet country road. 1. My brow chakra was in charge of spirituality and spirit-tospirit communications. Deacon Friar hadn’t put it this way, but my issues with my own spirituality and connectedness to Joel resided here. 2. My throat chakra was responsible for expression and asking for what I really want. No wonder I had choked up when I tried to send the message to Monica. And why had I been avoiding da Vinci ever since our shower? Hadn’t I enjoyed the pleasures of our bodies? 3. My heart chakra was involved with sensitivity to touch. I had tried to make up for my heart sensitivity with hugs from my boys—something I’d done right. But I had no idea that the element of air and problems with breathing were associated with love. How often had I woken up and felt that the air in the room had been sucked out, that the air felt different when Joel died and I hadn’t been able to breathe the same since? 4. The solar plexus chakra associated with freedom, power, and personality, one’s sense of being. No wonder my stomach

Dating da Vinci 117 ached all the time. My identity had been shredded the day Joel died. My former self was locked up inside that teddy bear jar. Who was I now? Who did I want to be? 5. Even my root chakra was in trouble. Not only because it was associated with my mother, but with Mother Earth and trust and security. It was only because of da Vinci that I had started feeling connected again to Mother Earth—running through the leafy paths of our neighborhood, enjoying a country afternoon riding horses, soaking up the sun and enjoying wine again. If five of my seven energy centers were on the fritz, how was there any hope for me at all? I had to be the worst case Cynthia had ever seen. “There is hope for all of us,” she said in her soothing tone that I was certain could put me to sleep like a lullaby. She gave me tips on meditation, on how to quiet the chatter in my mind to concentrate on being present, to slowly unwind the knots that hindered my flow. I was still skeptical, but hopeful. In fact, I was certain that before da Vinci had arrived, all seven of my chakras were out of whack. So as I left that studio, I made the decision that I didn’t need less of da Vinci, but more. Much, much more.

Chapter 11 THE STUDIO WAS NOT meant for making love. It was meant for concentration, hunched over a drafting table, the sofa there only to sit a spell until inspiration struck again. Instead, we were bent over the drafting table, and one look at the pencil cup felt like the lead had punctured my heart. I couldn’t. This was Joel’s sacred place, his refuge. And what was I doing? Seeking refuge in the arms of another man, a passionate man covering me with kisses, warming me in his embrace, whispering, “Ti desidero, Mona Lisa.” I want you. And I wanted him, too. God, I wanted him. If I let go, let myself feel the moment, calmed the chatter in my brain that said it wasn’t the right time or the right man, then I wanted da Vinci as much as I had wanted any man. Two glasses of Pinot had helped. My chakras could not be relaxed on their own, mind you. Two glasses and I felt more dream-state than reality. And as a fantasy this, da Vinci’s slow, measured concentration on my body, was divine. I knew if I let us, we could create our own masterpiece—like Gustav Klimpt’s The Kiss, mind, bodies, and souls entwined. The shower had just been a warm-up. Water had acted as a kind of buffer between us. Now we were nearly naked, nothing between us but silky bra and panties Joel had referred to as “funderwear,” strictly reserved for the one or two nights a week we (okay, I) had the energy to make love. To think, before da Vinci had arrived in my classroom, I almost threw my funderwear out. Grievers have no use for funderwear.

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If da Vinci represented all Italian men, then may I say Italians make great lovers? He was slow when he needed to be slow and assertive when he wanted to make me gasp; he was soft and firm and dizzying and delicious and always, always sexy. Within minutes, I forgot all about the pencil holder and the small sofa and the tiny studio and the house in Austin and the great state of Texas and the United States and Italy and the galaxy at large, because I was taken to that place closest to Heaven. Bliss. FFF

Have you ever had a guilty-pleasure hangover? I have. The next morning, after the amazing (God, did I dream it?) lovemaking in the studio, I woke up and felt different. A little more alive. A little peppy, a little less like the Ramona I had gotten used to. A little like the old, fun Ramona of yesteryear. I breathed in deeply as Cynthia had taught, pushing my breath from my nose all the way down to my toes and back again, filling up every part of me with the breath of life. The air was ripe with sunshine. Florida sunshine on a crisp October morning in Austin. Go figure. With unusual lightness, I got up and stretched, doing two of the yoga poses that didn’t threaten to throw my back out. I couldn’t be too exuberant yet, but I felt like I could even do a handstand if I tried. I had used muscles the night before I hadn’t used in awhile. I started giggling, a good girlish giggle long overdue. One probably shouldn’t giggle while in the downward-facing dog, but my body felt like it wasn’t entirely my own. I had shared it with someone else and it felt like a part of me was still with him. I rolled my shoulders back. The “him” might like bacon and eggs and pancakes. He could join our Sunday brunch that had been a tradition for the boys and me. I wrapped my fuzzy terry robe around

Dating da Vinci 121 me and headed out into my new life. I walked down the hallway, turned the corner and stopped dead in my tracks. Above my head was a dangling three-foot spider. Webs hung from the chandeliers. A large pumpkin stared up at me with its gap-toothed grin from under the entry hall table. I began to panic—everything was just as it had been that last Halloween Joel had decorated. What was this? A sign from above? Was Joel angry at me for last night? Happy? No way the boys could’ve done it. They couldn’t even reach the heavy box in the top of the closet. Just as I felt the room spinning around me, I heard their voices and the smell of bacon wafting through the house. “Mommy!” “Mother!” “Mona Lisa!” When I came to, those three faces stared down at me. How had I not believed in magic, in the power of signs delivered in something other than words? “Is it real?” “Is what real?” Bradley asked. “Can you see it? The spider. Is the spider real?” William’s eyes grew large. “No, mom. The spider’s not real. I can’t believe you thought it was real.” I sat up and did a 360 of the room. Yep. The decorations were all still there. Whoever did this must’ve taken hours. “So you’re telling me that none of you can see what I see? The house is full of Halloween.” “Crazy holiday,” da Vinci said. “But boys say lots of candy, so I trick or treat with them.” “Mom, the house is full of Halloween,” William said. “It’s like the good old days,” Bradley said. “I can’t believe your father did this,” I said, though I wasn’t sure it was out loud until I saw the expressions on my son’s faces. William’s lids filled with tears. “Mommy, Daddy didn’t do this.” “We did. As a surprise,” Bradley said.

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I looked from one boy to the next, noticing how much they’d changed this year, their faces less babylike, their baby teeth being replaced by the larger ones that seemed much too big for their mouths. Even their voices were losing the cuteness they had when Joel was alive. Could he hear them? Could he hear the change like I could? How ever were they big enough to pull off decorating just as their father had done? “I helped,” da Vinci said. “Da Vinci is tall.” “Well, were you surprised, Mom? Did we do a good job?” Bradley asked. I couldn’t speak—the chakra stopped up again, and I patted and kissed them atop the heads, except for da Vinci, whom I only looked at with dismay, wondering if he knew what he’d done. In one fell swoop, he had replaced Joel in not one, but two ways. I excused myself to go cry in the shower, my flow completely and utterly gone. When I joined my clan at the table, they were busy eating our traditional breakfast, and I tried to act normal, as if the decorations hadn’t bothered me or that da Vinci had not only taken Joel’s job, but mine, too. I was the short-order cook around here. I filled my plate with bacon and eggs, poured coffee and sat down at the table, prepared to eat in silence, thinking how unfair it was that I was so close to becoming a Normal only to have the Griever take over my body again. I chewed my bacon, vowing not to give da Vinci credit for making it crispier than my own or how much I liked the Tabasco sauce in the scrambled eggs, when Bradley looked at me with a straight face and asked, “Mom, did you and da Vinci have sex last night?” I could not tell a lie. Which is why even when it came to the Tooth Fairy and leprechauns and the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, I’d always been rather vague about their existence. “What do you think?” I would ask my boys, which would cause them to launch into elaborate fairy tales about the tiny Tooth Fairy kingdom where all the

Dating da Vinci 123 fairies bring the children’s teeth to polish and shine and then build themselves pearly mansions, or how Santa probably contracts with NASA, or at the very least, FedEx, to help deliver gifts quickly all over the world. So when they asked me about sex, and in particular sex with da Vinci, which unlike those fairy tales, had actually happened, I couldn’t lie. Instead, I said, “What happens between me and da Vinci is our own personal business. We like each other very much.” I’m not sure if the boys took that as a yes, but it did seemed to satisfy their curiosity for the time being. They stared at each other, stifled a giggle, then earnestly ate their pancakes. Of course I’d made a huge mistake. As fabulous as the night before had been, how I’d felt the stirring of my soul within me as I allowed passion to be unleashed once again, I knew as a mother I’d made a bad choice. The boys liked da Vinci, had welcomed him into our home, at our table, breaking bread together, laughing and going on as if we were gelling as a family. I couldn’t believe I’d allowed it to happen—it was all so soon, wasn’t it? How one day you can feel like you’re living in a dark cave and the next it’s filled with light and you can’t believe you’ve managed to move that boulder all by yourself, yet the world outside of it is so bright and scary. I shuddered. I had to be careful. “I think it’s marvelous,” Barbara said six hours later as she viewed my son’s Halloween displays, “If it makes them happy.” I wondered if she would say the same about me and da Vinci, but I had no intention of telling her anything was going on and I had made the boys’ promise not to talk about us, either. Suddenly I was sweating bullets over a simple family meal. I wondered if my nerves had to do with something else, too. “I think they’re in love,” Barbara said, referring to Rachel and Cortland, who were a good three minutes late according to my father’s watch. “Wouldn’t that be lovely to have a spring wedding? Is it

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too soon? Oh, certainly not. It’s not like a second wedding would be an elaborate affair. Now that Rachel’s famous, do you think they’ll cover their wedding in the society section? I bet Austin Living will want a cover story! Do you think the governor will come?” I let my mom go on and on about her own fantasy while I prepped the tenderloin for the oven. Dad and da Vinci were in the backyard tossing the football with Bradley while William stayed on the patio playing Sudoku. I glanced at them every few minutes to make sure nothing mischievous was going on. (As if I could tell if they were talking about sex.) When Cortland and Rachel arrived (now fourteen minutes late), my mother went on as if she hadn’t seen them in ages. It might make some people feel good to be greeted like those at the airport with the signs and the tears and high-pitched sentiments, but it just made me feel sad. Grievers need more than a cheerleading section to feel good about reunions when you know the one person you truly wish to be reunited with can never happen. Cortland surprised me, planting a kiss on my cheek and hugging me tightly. “Oh,” I said, patting his broad shoulders. “Yes. Good to see you, too. Wow, this is festive, right?” “Where’s the birthday boy?” Rachel said, practically doing cartwheels on her way to reach Dad. Zoe shook her head and shrugged. “He’s not a boy, he’s a man,” she pointed out. “But whatever.” I winked at Zoe and she helped me whip the mashed potatoes in the kitchen. She only got a home-cooked meal when she visited me or her grandma, so helping in the kitchen was her favorite thing. And to think, she didn’t have to wear makeup or sequins to get the attention she so craved. As we were seated around the dining room table set for nine (squishing in a chair for Zoe), I could feel the palpable presence of Joel

Dating da Vinci 125 in the room. I’m not sure if it’s because we were surrounded by the Halloween decorations he had so carefully hung each year or because I simply couldn’t get him off of my mind. Both Cortland and da Vinci pulled my chair out for me, one on each side, and da Vinci stiffened as though only he had the right to do so for his lady. As was ritual, Noble began the prayer and we all followed suit. Afterward, forks clanked and my mother began to take a sip of her wine, but holding it in the air, said, “I’m so glad you two are friends.” Da Vinci nodded, lifting his wine glass to propose a toast. “To friends and lovers,” he said. And the rest of us awkwardly joined in while my family members eyeballed me. I would shrug it off as an Italian thing. They wouldn’t know the difference. “To friends and lovers,” Cortland said, the one among them who might know the difference. Zoe piped up, “To friends and lovers.” My boys glanced over and I gave a quick shake, a silent signal for them to stay out of the toast. My father added, “Hear, hear,” and we clinked glasses and began an otherwise normal meal except for the question mark hanging above us like a chandelier: “Who exactly among us are friends, and who are lovers?” FFF

“No problem,” Rachel said as she stuffed my family videos into her oversized bag after dinner with the promise she would have her editing team transfer the outdated formats onto DVDs, as well as host them on a server. “I’ll give you the photo discs as soon as I print them out,” I told her, hesitant to hand over so many pieces of my and Joel’s life together at once. After all, Rachel wasn’t known for her organizational

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skills, and she had lost too many of my things over the years to keep track. “Ooh, I know!” Rachel said, snapping her fingers together. Her bright ideas always arrived with a thunderclap. “Why don’t you, me, and Mom have a scrapbooking party?” I shrugged, internally cringing at the thought of a) spending the day cutting out construction paper with my sister who would be filling her book with more pageant pictures while I laid out my soul with the last pictures of Joel, and b) ever finding the time to do something so crafty and creative. “You know you can do scrapbooks online now,” Cortland said, and Rachel beamed at him as if he were a brilliant anesthesiologist, which I’m sure he was. “What do you mean?” I asked, intrigued. “Well, since you already have your digital photos on your computer, you can go to a web site where they have design templates, and you just drag and drop your photos onto the pages and order it and they’ll ship it to you.” “Are you serious?” Rachel gasped. “And here I’ve been spending all that money on glitter and fancy stickers for Zoe’s books.” “I’m not very technically inclined,” I told him, embarrassed to admit I barely knew how to use e-mail, let alone do something important on the web. “If you have time, I could show you now.” Rachel shrugged. “Oh, she has oodles of time. I’m going to go out back and talk to the birthday boy. When you two are done, I’ll bring out the cake. Think Daddy will mind I had the baker put sixty-nine candles on the cake?” “Better than the numeral kind,” I said, recalling one of my mother’s most embarrassing moments; it was when Rachel was in junior high and I was in sixth grade and Rachel asked Mom and Dad at the dinner table what it meant to “69” someone. Besides choking on

Dating da Vinci 127 her chicken, Mother did nothing to satisfy Rachel’s curiosity, so Rachel did what most junior high girls would do and went to her girlfriends, who had asked older siblings what it meant. “God, Mom’s such a prude,” Rachel said. “And speaking of, I want to hear more about the whole ‘friends and lovers’ thing when we’re not in mixed company.” Cortland raised a brow, but before he could excuse himself, she turned on her heels, leaving us in the kitchen alone, her last statement still hanging in the air, but I was unwilling to respond to it. “It’s really none of my business,” Cortland said, and I swatted the air where she’d left it. “Nor hers,” I added, and we went into Joel’s office, which I couldn’t stop referring to as Joel’s office, probably because I only used it when trying and failing to e-mail his ex-girlfriend. He hadn’t spent much time there, as he preferred his garage studio with the drafting table. I pulled up the pictures, willing myself not to cry, then let Cortland pull up the web site memorybook.com, where I selected a simple design with photo edges and creamy backgrounds. “Nice choice,” Cortland said. “Now you just have to decide what cover shot you want to use.” I sifted through hundreds of photos, amazed that I didn’t mind Cortland sharing the moment, but I couldn’t decide which was coverworthy because every one featuring Joel felt cover-worthy to me, even the ones where he had devil-red eyes or where his head had been lopped off due to a bad camera operator (me). “Here, we can fix those red eyes,” Cortland said, taking over the mouse, blowing up Joel’s picture until it filled the frame to life-size. How had I forgotten about that tiny mole on his left cheek or the way his five o’clock shadow grew in faster on his chin than the rest of his face or how the corner of his eyelids rose when he smiled? And his eyes! Flecked with gold and brown and green, and even the blue of the ocean was in there. When Cortland removed the red

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eye, Joel looked nearly perfect, lopsided grin and all. I had to look away. I swallowed hard, then realized with surprise that what I felt right then was not grief, but love. For the first time when I viewed Joel’s picture, I didn’t feel sad at all, but simply happy to see him. Greetings-in-an-airport sort of happy. “You okay?” Cortland asked, putting his arm lightly around my shoulder, and I nodded. “I want the picture of the four of us at the beach in Galveston for the cover,” I said. “Then I’ll just go from there in chronological order. They all have to go in. This might take me weeks.” “Well, in that case,” Cortland said, pressing a button that zipped all the photos, the green bar steadily beeping across the screen. “What did you just do?” I said, starting to panic that he’d messed up my album. Then the screen blinked: Done. Your Griffen Family Album is complete and ready for viewing. I flipped through the pages, one click at a time, my heart nearly lifting me right out of my seat, and when I was finished, I clicked “Order” for three hardback books, one for each of us. “The boys will love it,” I said, beginning to tear up. Cortland rubbed the back of my neck with his hand, and when I looked up at him, tears in my eyes, I saw that he had tears in his eyes, too. Whatever I was feeling I had passed along to him, but I also saw something else, something that a woman never wants to see in the eyes of her sister’s boyfriend, and yet I liked it all the same.

Chapter 12 Two days until Joel’s DD (Death Date) MONICA BLEVINS WAS TALLER than I remembered. Of course, the only times I had seen her in person were among children at the school and standing at the back of the crowd at the funeral, and through my tears, she had looked like the blurriest, yet most beautiful woman I had ever seen. As I watched her walk to her car, a sleek red Mercedes, I breathed through the pangs of envy I felt in my chest. Before I arrived, I had stopped by the archdiocese to throw two pennies into the fountain. One penny was for resolution. I wished to get rid of that rock of uncertainty and doubt inside my heart, etched with Monica’s name. The other penny was for courage. I didn’t have a plan. As I drove up to the pricey new offices that Joel had designed for her law firm, I imagined his hands all over the glass and metal and rock he had picked out personally and thought how happy he would be if, as Deacon Friar thought, he could look down on earth and see the city, and even the state, marked with the buildings of his creation. No prep. No heads up. No warning. I hadn’t called or e-mailed her, deciding just two days from Joel’s death date that I wanted it over and done with, and the best way to achieve it would just be to go find her. She wasn’t hard to find, and even now, as she fumbled for the keys to unlock her car, I wondered why it had taken me so long to get

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to this moment. I could’ve called her when Joel was alive, but I was too afraid my suspicions were true and I’d have to make a decision to forgive Joel and stay with him or … what? Leave him? Go to counseling? It had all seemed too nightmarish to deal with in his life, and it was only when my motive was pure, when I had dropped that penny in the fountain, that I knew what I really wanted. No matter what she told me, it would be over with. Done. Finito. I would be okay with it either way. Joel loved me, and if this temptress—for she very much looked like a high-class version of one— had caused him to stray, then I would forgive him and still honor his memory. I loved him no matter. My love—no, our love—was strong enough to withstand whatever came of it. Still. I had to know. I got out of my car, feeling sloppy in my blue track suit compared to her fitted Armani number and stiletto heels, but I held my head high and walked fervently across the hundred feet between us, getting halfway there when she opened her door, plucked her cell phone from her briefcase and began talking as she slid into the leather seat and closed the door, shutting me out. What would I do? Pound on her window? Excuse me, Monica. I’m Joel’s widow. Remember me? Instead, I turned thirty degrees, stepped up on the sidewalk and watched her back out and speed away. I did not take this as a sign, only that I was too slow and had once again let fear keep me from acting fast enough. I retrieved my cell phone out of my jacket pocket and dialed her number, which I had memorized. I know this isn’t a